FOUR TALES

FROM ABROAD

A YEAR AT HOTEL GONDOLA by Nicky Pellegrino, Hachette

Refreshing canal-change with Kat Black, 50, who has spent her professional life as a food writer – pushing all the boundaries when it came to travel and far flung feasting. But what she hasn’t foraged so skilfully is a relationship. Now she has been commissioned to write a book about her new adventure, as she moves in with owner of Venice’s family-run Hotel Gondola, Massimo Morosini. Kat’s typed manuscript simmers between Pellegrino’s mouth-watering fictional story, as we lay back and are transported from an “almost-date” to Sig Right!

WOMEN IN SUNLIGHT by Frances Mayes, Penguin

Stylish taste of Italy, where an old hander helps newly acquainted US friends invent their future in Tuscany. Kit Raine is writing a biography of novelist Margaret Merrill, fellow Italian exile. Margaret said, “You can never go home,” but Kit reflects, “You can, until you’re not sure where home is.” As she watches a taxi draw up to the Villa Assunta, she imagines the trio of puffer-clad women choosing their bedrooms. Art teacher Camille, book editor Julia and realtor Susan, met at an over-55s community “freshman’s night”, until they quit water aerobics for wanderlust.

THE YELLOW VILLA by Amanda Hampson, Penguin

Suspense-filled storytelling from France, where Brit ex-pats actress Susannah and food critic hubby Dominic, are waiting the respectable week before introducing themselves to new Sydney 30-somethings Mia and Tinker. “When Susannah and Dominic arrived in Cordes, a flotilla of friendships sailed their way. They were just the sort of interesting new arrivals that established expats welcomed. One by one those friendships capsize.” Once a wonderful raconteur, Dominic is now a drunken bore. It may have been better if Susannah hadn’t put out the bienvenue mat.

THREE GOLD COINS by Josephine Moon, Allen & Unwin

Twenty-four hours out of Brisbane, real estate manager Lara tosses three coins in the Fontana di Trevi,

Rome. The first Euro was wishing to return, the second for romance, the third for marriage. Waking up the next morning in a 17th century villa in Tuscany is tough – she’s now carer to the old man who threw his wedding band in the fountain. This wasn’t quite what this sensitive soul was wishing for. Or was it? The view in front of her is from every Italian movie Lara has ever seen ... and then the old man’s gentle great-nephew Matteo teaches her how to milk the goats.