One Italian Summer

It’s beach read season! We are hitting the mid-80s in Charleston all week, so I’m going to go ahead and call it. There is no better book to kick it off than 'One Italian Summer.' It’s a beach read but with real depth and roots; the best kind of summertime journey. A young woman, Katy, who married a few years back, loses her best friend, idol, and mother. They had been planning a trip to Positano, a favorite of her mother's, who lived there a spell in her 20s before she settled down in LA, got married, and had a daughter. THIS daughter takes THAT trip and asks her husband not to accompany her—she’s not so sure she made the right decision on the marriage front, and she has a lot to process, after all. In Positano, at the beginning of her trip, she MEETS her mother, the young version of herself, that summer she lived in that seaside paradise by the sea. This is where things get interesting, coupled with a chance meeting with a young, very handsome hotelier trying to buy a slice of heaven himself. Reading this right before Mother’s Day, on the first one I will have without my own mother, feels a little serendipitous. God bless all the mamas and all the love they show their children, communities, and everything their eyes touch upon. Summer reading season is off to a great start 💛💫⭐️