Author: Phaedra Patrick

Review: The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra PatrickThe Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: relationship fiction, travel fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 320
Published by Park Row on June 6, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads

When a relationship expert’s own marriage falls apart, she invites four strangers to Italy for a vacation of healing and second chances in this uplifting new novel from the author of 
The Messy Lives of Book People
.
Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and advice expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift to Adrian, he surprises her with his own very different plan—a divorce.
Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her in Italy instead while live on air. From hiking the hills of Bologna to riding a gondola in Venice to sharing stories around the dining table of the little Italian hotel, Ginny and her newfound company embark on a vacation of healing.
However, when Adrian starts to rethink their relationship, Ginny must decide whether to commit to her marriage or start afresh, alone. And an unexpected stranger may hold the key to a very different future… Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores marriage, identity and reclaiming the present moment—even if it means leaving the past behind.
Look for Phaedra Patrick’s previous charming bestsellers! The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone The Library of Lost and Found The Secrets of Love Story BridgeThe Messy Lives of Book People

My Review:

There are a slew of really good reasons why doctors make the worst patients and lawyers who represent themselves have fools for clients. In both cases the practitioner, no matter how successful they are in their profession, are generally incapable of having the emotional distance necessary to do that job well when it comes to their own lives.

The same thing is true of therapists – and undoubtedly advice columnists. It’s easy to give advice to other people, but hard to see one’s own problems – even when they are staring you in the face.

And that’s where Ginny Splinter’s journey to The Little Italian Hotel begins, when a caller into her radio talk show/advice column tells her that her so-called ‘perfect life’ is anything but. A truth that Ginny has been trying to keep herself from looking into for a whole lot longer than she is willing to admit. Even to herself. Especially to herself.

Ginny’s marriage has, not a communications problem, but a communications chasm. She keeps trying to patch it over, while her husband Adrian has just detached himself from it and from her. Neither of them is innocent. Neither of them is particularly guilty – at least not yet – either.

Although there’s a vat of acid waiting for Adrian because he IS a real douche about the whole thing. But that’s attitude and not adultery – at least not yet.

When the feces hits the oscillating device Ginny is left with an empty house, a hole in her heart, an adult daughter she’s not ready to rip the emotional bandage off of just yet – and an over-the-top, romantic-to-the-max, totally non-refundable, three week holiday in Italy that she has no idea what to do with.

Her solution to that one practical part of her dilemma sits right on that fine line between genius and insanity – and could tip either way at a moment’s notice. She can’t get her money back, but she can switch the trip from expensive and uber-romantic for two to a much less expensive family-run small-town pensione for five. Since the trip is already paid for, she invites four of her listeners to come along with her on a trip to hopefully heal all of their broken hearts.

She has no plan, no itinerary, and no previous knowledge of ANY of her new traveling companions. It’s either going to be three weeks of wonder, three weeks of limbo, or three weeks of hell on Earth.

But it just might work. And it will absolutely, positively (or perhaps negatively) be an adventure!

Escape Rating B: The thing that struck me about The Little Italian Hotel, once we start getting to know the whole ensemble, is that the story doesn’t give any one kind of grief more weight than any other. And that was terrific because of the way it validates all the feelings in ways that we don’t often see jumbled together in one story.

While the group wasn’t as diverse as it could have or possibly should have been, it did represent a spectrum of the different ways that life can fall completely apart and just how hard it is to get out of your own head to get yourself on a positive trajectory after the fact.

Ginny, as is obvious from the blurb, is 50 and is looking at a marriage that wasn’t nearly as ‘perfect’ as she thought it was. A revelation that will change the course of the rest of her life, whether they patch things back together or go their separate ways. And I loved that even though some of the blurbs refer to this as a romance, it really isn’t. This is Ginny’s journey to finally learning what she wants out of her life for her ownself and that’s lovely.

Her travel companions range from 20 something Eric who has lost his best friend, to 80 something Edna who lost her husband and special needs daughter decades ago and has just sold her house full of memories to move to a retirement village. The griefs and losses weighing down 30 something Curtis and 40 something Heather are just as heartbreaking and completely different from each other’s and everyone else’s.

What makes the story fun is that it is a journey of discovery for everyone, including the pensione’s owner and his college-age daughter. The group as a whole grows together, sometimes drifts apart, drives each other crazy and individually and collectively goes places both emotionally and physically they never thought they’d go.

And wouldn’t have been able or willing to go alone.

This is also a bit of a slice-of-life/slice-out-of-life story, and like life itself, it doesn’t really come to a definitive ending, at least not for Ginny herself. She decides to continue her journey of discovery, but not by either traveling around the world or falling in love as happens in Eat, Pray, Love. (The whole thing is a bit of Eat, Pray, Love mixed with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, making it charming all the way around.) But it’s not quite a happy ever after, and it’s not exactly a romance, and it’s just a tiny bit equivocal in its finish that is not exactly an ending.

And isn’t that just like life?

Review: The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Review: The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra PatrickThe Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance, relationship fiction, women's fiction
Pages: 336
Published by Park Row on April 28, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A single father gets an unexpected second chance at love in the heartwarming new novel from the author of
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper


It’s summer in the city and passions are soaring along with the temperature—for everyone but Mitchell Fisher, who hates all things romance. He relishes his job cutting off the padlocks that couples fasten to the famous “love story” bridge. Only his young daughter, Poppy, knows that behind his prickly veneer, Mitchell still grieves the loss of her mother.

Then one hot day, everything changes when Mitchell courageously rescues a woman who falls from the bridge into the river. He’s surprised to feel an unexpected connection to her, but she disappears before he can ask her name. Desperate to find out her identity, Mitchell is shocked to learn she’s been missing for almost a year. He teams up with her spirited sister, Liza, on a quest to find her again. However, she’s left only one clue behind—a message on the padlock she hung on the bridge.

Brimming with Phaedra Patrick’s signature charm and a sparkling cast of characters, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge follows one man’s journey to unlock his heart and discover new beginnings in the unlikeliest places.

My Review:

I picked up this book because the premise reminded me of our trip to Dublin last year, particularly the Ha’penny Bridge, officially known as the Liffey Bridge. And it shouldn’t have, because the Ha’penny Bridge is not a love lock bridge, at least not officially. Although I’m sure it happens.

On the other hand, the fanciful, ultra-modern, slightly fantastical bridge that lies at the heart of so much of the heartbreak in Mitchell’s past sounds exactly like the Samuel Beckett Bridge (pictured below), which we walked across every day while we were in Dublin.

Mitchell’s story is a story about bridges. Not so much about designing them, as he did when he was a practicing architect, or about denuding them of illicitly placed locks, as he is doing when the story opens.

(Not that the denuding doesn’t need to be done. As romantic as the love lock concept sounds, it’s actually dangerous to the bridges. Padlocks are heavy. Lots and lots and lots of locks all together are VERY heavy. If the bridge wasn’t designed to bear the extra weight – eventually it won’t – with disastrous results.)

But the bridges in this story are the kind of bridges that span the distance between yesterday and tomorrow. Between the past and the present, Between a father and his daughter, both grieving the loss of their partner/mother in their own – unfortunately completely antithetical – ways.

And most especially, the bridge between clinging to the hurts of the past and searching for a brighter future.

Escape Rating B: This is a story that rewards patience. There’s a point in this story, just about at the halfway point, where a switch flips and it shifts from being a bit of a downer to a story where it’s not just that things are finally happening, and Mitchell is shaken out of his rut, but where things actually look up and get brighter.

Which does happen because Mitchell gets shaken out of his rut when he leaps over that bridge in pursuit of the mysterious woman who fell off – a mystery that seems to deepen as Mitchell learns more about her. In the process he learns more about himself, or finds the road back from the slough of despond he’s been wallowing in for the past three years, or both.

Or one could say that his act of spontaneous heroism breaks him out of the straitjacket of plans, goals and objectives that he has been trapped in since his partner’s death. A straitjacket that he has been using to keep himself from feeling the grief he needs to get through.

Once his daughter’s music teacher, Liza Bradfield, reveals that the woman he rescued is her sister, a sister who has been missing for the past year, his carefully planned and somewhat stale life moves, awkwardly at first, into Liza’s more colorful and much more spontaneous world.

At first the endless circling of his thoughts tries to drag him back into his safe but sterile existence, only for him to be taken by the hand by his daughter Poppy and pulled into the world that she wants to inhabit. A world with friends and fun and definitely with Liza.

But it takes Mitchell about half the book to start climbing out of that rut, and it’s a bit dark and gloomy down there. The story only begins to shine when Mitchell starts letting things happen instead of trying to plan them to death – and he’s all the better for it. So is Poppy. So is the story.

The second half of this book really sings, as Mitchell starts to shake himself loose, finally lets himself grieve and move forward (the catharsis is much needed) and gets himself involved not just with Liza but with her entire slightly crazy family.

His heart opens, his world expands and sunshine comes back into his life. A big part of that expansion consists of the wave of letter writing inspired by his plunge into the icy river. Those letters let him see just how many people he’s touched – and they touch him in return.

I enjoyed Mitchell’s story, but I really wish we could have seen more of those letters, because the ones we got were a delight – even when Mitchell wasn’t ready to see it.

Review: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Review: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick + GiveawayThe Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: women's fiction
Pages: 352
Published by Park Row on March 26, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A librarian’s discovery of a mysterious book sparks the journey of a lifetime in the delightful new novel from the international bestselling author of
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people—though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible.

All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend—her grandmother Zelda—who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda’s past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.

Filled with Phaedra Patrick’s signature charm and vivid characters, The Library of Lost and Found is a heartwarming and poignant tale of how one woman must take control of her destiny to write her own happy ending.

My Review:

What is lost and finally found at this library is the heart and spirit of volunteer library worker Martha Storm. The story of how she was “lost”, is told in flashbacks, but the story of what she found and how she found it is part of the present.

And it’s completely charming.

I found myself caught up in Martha’s initially self-restricted life and eventual flowering almost in spite of myself. To the point where I started and finished the book in a single day.

Not a lot happens in this story. There aren’t any great adventures or major events. Well, not exactly. Except that there are – mostly in the sense of a journey of the spirit, with signposts provided by the events of her life along the way.

Martha Storm volunteers at her local public library in tiny little Sandshift – a small town on the coast of England. She’s the person who does everything for everybody, always going above and beyond on every side, with no hope of compensation and nary a word of thanks.

She’s a woman who seems constitutionally incapable of saying “No” to anyone. And no one seems to appreciate her for it – not her boss, not her co-workers, not the villagers she helps and certainly not her sister. Not until she finally, suddenly, almost inexplicably manages to say that one word – and both her world and that world’s view of her, begins to shift.

So does she. And as Martha starts to find herself, she also finds what she lost long ago – her grandmother.

Escape Rating B+: This is a story about family secrets, their power to harm, and their power to destroy. And it’s about the freedom that comes with setting those secrets free.

In my own family, there was a secret. At my grandfather’s funeral my aunt revealed that my grandmother was not her mother – that my grandfather had been married before. It wasn’t a big secret – nor was it destructive in the way that the secrets in this story were. But it told me a vital piece of information that explained a great deal about my childhood – I was my grandmother’s only grandchild. She was already deceased, so it had no effect on my relationship with her – but it colored my memories of her differently.

The secrets that have been kept from Martha Storm all of her life, while they don’t change the past, definitely put it into a much different light. A light that illuminates so many events and relationships that defined her – and not always for her benefit.

When she was in her early teens, her parents told her that her charismatic, beloved grandmother Zelda was dead. They refused to let her go to the funeral, and she never found the grave.

When a local bookseller gives her a worn-out copy of a book, written by her grandmother, made up of stories that Martha wrote and told to her grandmother and stories that her grandmother wrote and told to her, she’s flabbergasted. When she reads the dedication at the front of the book, a dedication to her, written three years after her grandmother’s “death”, Martha’s world starts to unravel.

But what unravels are all the accretions and protections, all the shoulds and don’ts, all the negging that her uber-controlling father wrapped around Martha, her mother, and her sister. All the things that kept Martha from venturing out into the world, and letting the world venture into her.

All the things that would have challenged her father’s control of her. Like her grandmother.

In her search for her grandmother, Martha rediscovers herself and her childhood joy of the world around her.

She gets a second chance at life. At love. And with her beloved Zelda. The truth sets her free to be her best self.

And it makes an absolutely charming story.

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