Leah
Written on May 3, 2014
Novels set in foreign, warm lands always warm my soul; there’s something about a foreign destination that lends itself to all kinds of magic (which is ironic because I live on a tropical island and it drives me insane half the time – living somewhere, and holidaying somewhere are not one and the same), but in this case I actually found the Sheffield setting very charming, despite it not being Italy. Perhaps because I rarely travelled when I lived in England, and Sheffield is somewhere I’ve never been, and I felt it lent itself nicely to the novel. We’re introduced to three wonderful ladies, and although it takes a little bit for them all to come together, I thought it was very well done! Lucy Diamond is ace at introducing us to characters who are warm and real, and in Anna, Catherine and Sophie she’s hit the mark yet again. At first they seem like strangers – Anna’s a journalist who, despite her job, has never known who her father is, so when her gran lets slip the name Gino, Anna believes her Dad is an Italian – an Italian who her mum had a fling with the year before Anna was born and she’s desperate to find him; Catherine has just dropped her twins off at University, and arrives home early to find her husband in bed with his mistress, saying he’s never loved her; and Sophie is living it up in Italy, when she hears the news her Dad has had a heart attack – she drops everything, and rushes back to Sheffield to tend to him…
All the girls have Italy in common and when Sophie agrees to teach an Italian for Beginners class that Anna and Catherine both decide to attend, the three form a firm, tentative friendship. It was a super enjoyable novel, throughout, from beginning to end. I was immediately sucked in to all of the stories, wondering where the plot was going, and seeing how the characters were connected, and I very much enjoyed the Italian slant on the novel – hearing just a little about Sophie’s life in Italy was gorgeous, it sounds like such a lovely country, filled with passion, and history and beautiful sights! Learning a few Italian phrases as the class learnt was also amazing – I speak a little Spanish (I understand more than I can speak, to be fair) and I wish I could be fluent in a language, but I just don’t have the capacity to take it in, for some reason and I admired Sophie, Anna, Catherine and the rest of the class for taking that leap and putting themselves out there! I found the three women fascinating – they’re all so different, but they rub together so well, with their different lives and jobs! Sophie was by far my favourite – until she came home to take care of her dad, she lived the life I can only dream of living – travelling around the world with only her passport for company, seeing beautiful countries and making new friends… Catherine surprised me the most – she seemed like a typical downtrodden wife initially, but she showed she was strong and unafraid to take on her ex, despite the shoddy way he treated her and she made me want to cheer for her out loud! I really liked Anna, too – I loved hearing her newsroom stories, especially her friendship with Joe, although I found her imagination to be a bit… out there. She learns from her gran that her father may be Italian and goes off on tangents about how she has “Italian in her blood” and how her father will welcome her with open arms, etc, and I just found it unrealistic for someone who’s a journalist, who should perhaps know better.
I really loved One Night In Italy, despite only a few Italian scenes, it really was evocative of Italy and the passion for the country, for the language was really very infectious. Diamond really put her stamp on it and I adored it. I love when authors put all their might into writing a novel about something they’re passionate about and Diamond wrote passionately and beautifully about Italy, and I just LONG to go there to visit. I adored the Italian chapter titles (although, I think it’s cheating when you include the English translation – I would have left that out; if readers wanted to know what it meant it could have just been put in the back of the book, in my opinion) and it was just such a lovely, warm-hearted book. Yes, the novel is about Anna, Catherine and Sophie but their extended families, and the new friends they make at the Italian class all make for one big, happy community, banding together and helping through tough times (Roy and Geraldine’s incident springs to mind) and it was so sweet to see, it always makes my heart expand when characters can be so caring and lovely in other people’s time of need. It was very much an unforgettable, wonderful novel with so many nuances and plots to keep track of, but it was very easily done – Diamond has such a way with words, that keeps you reading and I just adore her easy writing style (and it’s in third-person, which I always find to be all the more impressive). Roll on the next Lucy Diamond book, she is a star!