When Fernando spots her in a Venice cafe and knows immediately that she is The One, Marlena de Blasi is caught off guard. A divorced American chef and food writer travelling in Italy, she is happy with her life. Yet within a few months of meeting Fernando, she quits her job, sells her house, kisses her two grown children goodbye, and moves to Venice to marry "the stranger" as she calls Fernando. Once there, she finds herself sitting in sugar-scented pastisseries, strolling through 16th-century palazzi, redecorating an apartment overlooking the Adriatic Sea and preparing her wedding in an ancient stone church. But living this romantic dream is not always a smooth path. De Blasi is sometimes bewildered by the peculiarities of Venetian culture, and even occasionally mystified at the differences evident between she and Fernando. His kitchen is "a cell with a Playskool stove", and his spartan tastes are a world away from the sensual delights which she loves to create. Both set in their ways but also set on being together, they learn from each other what is important. The book is filled with the foods, flavours, sights and life of Venice.
This was part of a box of books I was given by my neighbour, and as I'd previously read A Thousand Days in Tuscany, I was interested to read how de Blasi's story began. When I first picked up A Thousand Days in Tuscany it was billed as 'romantic' but was not at all romantic (beyond the romance of living in Tuscany); it was far more about her and her husband's work on their land and home and I found it more interesting than I expected. So when I saw this one touted as romantic as well, I took it with a grain of salt.
Turns out this one is all about the romance. How she met her husband on a trip to Venice and had sold everything back home and married him within the year. This might seem implausible to a lot of readers, but as I met MT, sold everything and moved to AU within 10 months, I'm not one of those people. Our beginnings, however, weren't nearly as romantic; I suspect the setting had a lot to do with that. Exotic (for me, anyway), but definitely not Venice-Italy-romantic. (This might sound like a wistful complaint; it's not - I do not have a romantic bone in my body.)
So, generally, I did not enjoy this one as much. I mean, I enjoyed the Venice bits, of course, but reading about her romance and her struggles to fit in to an entirely new culture, while getting to know her new husband were, even though they felt very realistic, not really my cuppa.
Reading this did leave me with a very strong hankering for pasta though. Three guesses what we had for dinner. ;)
Reading updates
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Started reading
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8 February, 2018:
Finished reading
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8 February, 2018:
Reviewed