Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Can a few days in the Italian sun really change you? …Hell yeah!
An Italian Holiday
What you need to know before your trail
A house in the Italian hills….not far from Positano on the Amalfi Coast no less…with the smell of lemons in the air, the heat of the sun on your back and life’s sparkles hovering beside you on the clear blue sea waiting to come back to you.
Sounds good right? An Italian holiday might just be what the doctor ordered. And there are four women who need nothing more than a break from their troublesome lives. Angela who may just have lost her company, Sylvie who having discovered her husband in bed with a young blond needs to get away, Claire who could do with a big dose of confidence in her glass of limoncello and Monica whose mousy demeanour makes her the ideal candidate for a transformation with some breathless Italian love affair. And all with secrets packed tight in their suitcases.
All head out to a villa called La villa Sirenuse which may just have a few secrets of its own…
Travel Guide
Italy – the Amalfi Coast
First of all, sadly Lerini and Lanzarella are fictional. However, in this novel they seem so real that you can literally smell the lemon groves there as you turn the pages. Or at least sense the imposing presence of Mount Vesevius as the famous mountain is only 45 mins away from Lanzarella. On the way to the villa itself and….
“Despite the rain, scented shrubs – choisya, lilac, daphne and banksiae roses – welcomed them in a perfumy embrace from either side of the road.”
This fragrant welcome gets better with you get a chance to wander around the villa with the women themselves. You discover it at the same time…
“In the gardens that tumbled down the hillside it wasn’t just the light that amazed her but a heady perfume she didn’t recognise. As she rounded the corer at the side of the house ahe came across a pergola, half hidden by a mass of purple wisteria, with two chairs placed underneath it……On the next level down, a small fountain tricked beside a half-hidden grotto with a fresh-water pool built into the rock face…with a life-sized marble nymph….”
This nymph is symbolic for the house La Sirenuse gives a nod to the islands also known as the Gallos, an archipelago of little islands off the Amalfi Coast of Italy between Isle of Capri and 6 km swt of Province of Positano. The name, Sirenuse, is a reference to the mythological sirens said to have lived there. Women who lure men……hmmmmm. Rather excitingly there’s a hotel of that name in Positano!
Day trips from Lanzarella
Fictional it may be but a great place to stay and then go visit Positiano and Capri followed by a jaunt to Pompei! like the women in the novel
Mount Vesuvius
If possible, go to Naples and then get the Circumvesurviana train like Monica does. A train that goes around the mountain! Don’t worry the mountain has been extinct since 1954 but it fascinates many as it does the women in the novel.
Trail Gallery
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This brought sunshine and smiles into my life! A novel about a mysterious house on the Amalfi coast that four strangers are headed towards for some R and R always gets my reading radar working overtime but this was just a joy from start to finish! Ah Angela even organising the breakfast on the first day got me laughing, Sylvie with her usual dress palette of vermillion to aubergine, Claire on her search for confidence and Monica mooching around in the background at first…well these very different women truly blossomed in the story and I felt instantly one of their little group. Heck I’d even joined their famous Lanzarella Women’s Cooperative by the end of it (wait till you hear about that – that’s a chuckle)
I imagined Maeve to be chuckling and laughing drinking limoncello whilst writing this novel for the fun splashes of colour and Italian words she sprinkled in to the mix, the sights of the whitewashed houses on the hill all calm followed by one character humping her suitcase up the mountain was just the perfect mix of Italian paradise and Brits abroad. There’s certainly enought foreign flavour to get those taste buds drooling as well – I do like the sound of burrata cheese!
An Italian holiday is just that – a holiday with four new friends and some men folk drafted in for good measure. What these women find at the house they call The Siren is yours to discover but it’s a cute and funny ramble on the hillside, looking out into the lemon groves and the promise of a better tomorrow.
Best to appreciate this novel with a glass of something yourself, with a hearty Italian (make of that what you will) whilst wearing ‘ a hug in a dress’ -and have yourself that una vacanza italiana? It’s a Done Deal 😉
Booktrail Boarding Pass: An Italian Holiday
Author/Guide: Maeve Haran Destination: Naples, Amalfi Coast, Postiano “Lanzarella” fictional Departure Time: 2000s
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