Elegance - Happy Mother's Day

The next novel I will write on is Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro. I’ve chosen this as a dedication for Mothers day...  My mother absolutely epitomizes elegance, so let’s hope it’s a good read... xx

Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani



Yep, I ate all of those chocolate hearts after taking this pic :)

 So three weeks after Valentine’s day here’s my valentine-y post... it’s actually quite appropriate that I didn’t post the ‘Very Valentine’ post on (or around) valentine’s day because the novel wasn’t about Valentine’s day at all, instead it was about our heroine, a woman called Valentine. This teaches me to not judge a book by its cover as it can lead to pre-judgements about what to expect from the novel....

We follow the story of Valentine, a woman from a large Italian family who has to find her way through the trials of life - Romance, independence, fighting for her job and home and dealing with the many dramas of her huge family. Very Valentine was full of laughs and there was plenty to take away and think about.

Valentine and her Grandmother, Teodora, run the Angelini Shoe Company Greenwich Village. It comes to light fairly early on in the novel that the company which has been around since 1903 is on the verge of financial collapse. It’s up to Valentine and her grandmother to think of new innovative ways to bring the company back into the 21^st Century and save it from ruin and the claws of Valentine’s banker brother.

I really felt that in terms of what happening in our economic world this story-line was very fitting and I felt the struggle Valentine and her grandmother faced. There were so many dilemmas surrounding pride, integrity, the will to keep fighting for what you believe in and what’s true to your heart Let’s just say when the right opportunities presented themselves to these girls, boy did the seize them! (I’m not going to say how they manage to save themselves but let’s just say the Angelini shoe company wasn’t such a small player in the world of competing with the creations from the likes of Chanel and Dior ;) …)

I have to admit, there were several times where I did struggle to relate to Valentine as a character. I think in terms of personality and the ways she went about certain things are most certainly not the way I would never go about things – for example kissing men in Italy while you have quite a lovely man waiting for you back in New York City..? She was a good girl at heart and I loved her relationship with her grandmother. They were perfectly written - very human! Valentine’s mom, was a character that I think I would like to know in real life – she oozed the (cheap) glamour that we all try and stay away from (I hope), she was loveable and these three characters were the anchors of the novel.

As much as the story was about Valentine, her love dilemmas, her work, and living, and family situations, the character that stole my heart was Valentine’s grandma – Teodora. An Eighty year old woman, still working and just managing to keep her company and jetting off to Italy once a year to get the finest Italian materials for the shoes she makes and also to meet the second love of her life – Dominic Vechiarelli (wasn’t expecting that twist). Teodora kept her love a secret from everyone for ten years as she didn’t want them to feel hurt that she had found someone who made her happy after the death of the grandfather of the family (which is understandable). She was completely adorable and the most loving and empathetic of all the characters – so when she has a surprise proposal at the end of the novel, it’s just the icing on the cake!!

At the end of the novel we have a real heart warming scene as Teodora, Valentine and Valentine’s mom are looking on at the shop window, seeing the work they have been a part of their entire adult lives and feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment that can only come from something you’ve practically dedicated your life to. Yes - that’s how the novel ends, a cliff-hanger..? I think so...

p.s ...By the way who am I kidding? I’ll always be the one judging a book by its cover...

xxx