Love At First Sight by Jessica Gilmore

Region - Sicily

SUMMARY

She's in love.
Just with the wrong man . . .

Nora is done with dating, but still dreams of finding the one. So when a handsome stranger comes to her rescue one night and vanishes leaving only a business card, it's like a scene out of a romcom . . .

It doesn't take long for the two to 'bump' into each other again, and Nora falls for the perfect-on-paper Gabe. Only a few weeks later, he invites her to Sicily, and she cannot believe her luck!

Until Gabe is forced away for work, leaving her alone with his big and warm family in gorgeous Sicily who welcome her with open arms. Everyone but Luca, his older and distrustful brother, who is always around.

Soon Nora finds herself on the holiday of a lifetime . . . just with the WRONG brother.

MY REVIEW:

When I first started reading the book, Love at First Sight, I thought it would be a typical ‘rom-com or ‘beach read’  - a book you can take on holiday, which is good enough to keep you engaged but not so serious as it will spoil your holiday. However, as  I progressed, I felt there was much more to this story. The layers and themes added to the drama and made it so much more interesting.

Essentially, this is Nora’s story, her life, past present and future. Yet, the author peels back layers to reveal a parallel narrative, the story of her mother Lottie.

Each chapter starts with a postcard entry from the narrator's mother, Lottie who went backpacking in Europe as a teenager. The first entry starts in 1995 from Paris, then Vienna,

“Mutter und Vater

 Oh Vienna! With your boulevards, tea rooms and cakes! I am going to move here instead of Paris so I can waltz, eat sachertorte and have a little dog who I will walk through the park before another coffee and more cake”

 and then Florence, Italy, each with more passion and excitement than the last. There simply is no way to tour Europe and not be awestruck by its scenic beauty, epic history dazzling artistic and culinary diversity. The writing conveys this.

“Ciao Mamma et Papa

Italy is where I am meant to be.. bella Firenze. I didn’t know anywhere could be so perfect but Florence really, really is (as is the ice cream)

Tutti amore, Lottie”

So as the book progresses, we follow Lottie on her pilgrimage to see beautiful places, and make connections and memories. When she is in Florence, she meets Erik, the handsome  Swedish backpacker and the ensuing romance leads to the birth of Nora. However, travel can also alter one's worldview, and enlarge one's thinking and vision of the world, and so Nora’s own wanderlust adds another element woven into the story.

Still, this is a romcom so there has to be a Bridget Jones doomed quest, not for self-improvement but for love and there has to be some endearing moments of humour. Boxes ticked but at the beginning I wondered if Nora was too desperate, too vulnerable and too desperate to find a man.

‘“But we call kiss our fair share of frogs before we find our prince, said Dai.

“Well, I for one have kissed my last frog,” replied Nora. “It's dating I am done with, not love.” She wanted pyjamas and a takeaway on a Saturday night, long walks across Hampstead Heath talking about nothing and yet finishing each other’s sentences. She wanted a perfect fit. Her perfect fit.’

Reading on, I felt I understood what Nora wanted and it was more of a quest for meaning in her life than for pleasure. We know that she lost her beloved grandparents. We know that she lost her mother five years earlier and we know that her mother experienced ‘ love at first sight’ when she bumped into Erik at a gelateria in Florence. They spent a perfect few days together before Lottie returned home realising she was pregnant. This sense of transience, this phase when you are so besotted with someone is the illusive emotion which Nora wants to recreate. I really felt invested in this and I wanted to read on. I wanted Nora to find her Prince Charming.

Following a ‘damsel in distress moment, where Nora is nearly run over by a motorbike, she is rescued by a handsome Italian. Believable? Yes, Absolutely. I willed Nora to track down Gabriel Catalano and start a relationship. However, that is not real life so even when he whisks her off to meet his family who just happen to own a vineyard on the slopes on Mount Etna, something about the romance is not right. And then, there is the brother, Luca.. prickly, a little offhand at first, proud, detached. In fact, a modern-day Mr Darcy, a smouldering, aloof and romantic hero.

I felt reading this that there were elements of some of my most favourite books, from Pride and Prejudice, to Bridget Jones and to Room with a View. Indeed, there are many references to it in the story. You could say perhaps that Love at First Sight is a modern adaptation of EM Forster’s classic book. I saw the film many years ago yet its timeless allure echoes that of modern romantic comedies, drawing readers into the captivating dance of emotions. The story revolves around the classic "will-they, won't-they" tension of a young woman, Lucy Honeychurch, who is engaged to Cecil Vyse but finds herself in love with George Emerson. The parallels with Nora and Luca are deliberately similar but I think this is a clever kind of updated romantic narrative where the heroine falls for the wrong man before realizing her mistake and ending up with the true hero.

 There are some wonderful insights towards the end of the story where Nora talks to her friend Anna about whether she should marry Gabriel.

“The only real question, Nora, is do you love Gabe enough to marry him? Life isn’t a film. No one said it was fun or easy. Your mother’s romance with Erik wasn’t real life. They had a perfect romance but a love story is a life together, like your grandparents who stayed together through all the years. They got on each other’s nerves sometimes but cared enough to make it right when they went through a bad patch.”

In this speech, we feel that the author concurs with the Austen view of the enduring nature of true love and yet Nora has more in common with Bathsheba  Everden than Elizabeth Bennett.  In Thomas Hardy’s Bathsheba, we find a financially independent, modern young woman pursuing her business with passion and sense, yet failing to pursue romance with the same insight.

Reader investment is reader engagement. Did I love the book? Yes, I did. I felt empathy for Nora and I was curious for her future. The story had drama and uncertainty. It was compelling and tantalizing. I thought that there were really good descriptions of the characters, they were realistic, genuine and endearing. Then of course there is the setting. The vivid descriptions of Italy and the Italian way of life will instantly transport any reader to a holiday state of mind.

I will not provide a spoiler here but at the end of the story, Nora decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps and go travelling. This is where I reached for my packet of tissues!

‘Nora looked over at a framed photo of her mother just as she set out on her life-changing trip, hair in plaits, a rucksack half her size by her side, excited grin taking up half her face and blew it a kiss. “ I need your help, Mum, she said. “Tell me I can do this.” Reading the travel planner, it was as if her mother was back with her, advising her, believing in her. Loving her.’

Why I recommend this book

Essentially it is about one girl's impulsive bid to "find herself" after the death of her mother and a relationship with her ex breaks down. Yes, it's about relationships and how we want to be loved. We are all in love with the idea of being in love so we chase this elusive feeling, trying to feel the spark and intensity of a new passion. For Nora, there is an emotional response of euphoria yet it is compounded by a nagging feeling that she is in love with the wrong man. Her finance’s brother Luca, arrogant and slightly misunderstood, just like Mr Darcy is more than he appears and that is the appeal. Falling in love with the wrong person doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be loved.

In the same way that Italy gave Lucy Hornchurch insights into her life back at Windy Corner and it changes her perspective of herself, Italy does the same for Nora. She works through the confusion of the experience. Will they… won’t they… The reader will not find out until the last chapter whether Nora does indeed find the realistic and sustainable love she seeks.

The portrayals of Sicily and Italian family life are captivating and are a perfect setting for a summer romance and so easy to visualise a vineyard on the foothills of Mount Etna

‘A graceful stone-built villa, huge flower-filled pots and trees in the front courtyard. The windows were shuttered, giving the villa a fairy-tale feel. There was a heady scent of lemons, oranges and greenery tinged with salt – a sure sign that the sea was not too far away.’

The eloquent writing style is descriptive, skillfully ensnaring the reader's attention from the very first page to the final one. I commend the heartwarming tone and subliminal message that none of us are perfect but if we can find an inner strength, we will stay true to ourselves.

“All of Sicily is a dimension of the imagination.”
- Leonardo Sciascia, 1921-1989, Writer

AUTHOR BIO:

A charity-working, dog-walking, child-wrangling, dust-ignoring bookworm, Jessica lives in the beautiful and historic city of York with one patient husband, one daughter, one very fluffy dog, two dog-loathing cats and a goldfish called Bob.
As daydreaming is her very favourite hobby and she loves a good happy-ever-after Jessica can't believe she's lucky enough to write romance for a living. Say hi on Twitter at @yrosered or visit sprigmuslin.blogspot.com

Social Media Links –

https://www.instagram.com/yrosered/

https://twitter.com/yrosered

BOOK BLURB:

 Published by Orion (4 July 2024) Available in paperback & kindle from Amazon