bookchickdi: Phaedra Patrick

Showing posts with label Phaedra Patrick. Show all posts

Sunday, June 4, 2023

The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

Published by Park Row Books ISBN 9780778387121

Trade paperback, $18.99, 320 pages

In Phaedra Patrick's newest novel The Little Italian Hotel, Ginny Splinter spends her days giving advice to callers on her radio talk show in a small town in England. She loves helping people and believes that she can help them solve their life problems. There isn't a problem Ginny can't fix,

Ginny is married to Adrian, who sells high end sports cars at a local dealership. She is about to surprise Adrian with a special anniversary trip to Italy when Adrian tells her that he is moving out, he doesn't know if he wants to be married anymore.

This stuns Ginny, and when she discovers that Adrian has a profile on a dating website, she is even more shocked. How could she, the woman with all the advice for her listeners, have been so clueless as to what was going on her marriage?

When Ginny finds out that the trip is nonrefundable, she invites four listeners from her show to join her in Italy. Instead of a stay for two at a luxury hotel and spa in a small town outside Bologna, Ginny will be joined by four strangers at a little Italian hotel near the luxury hotel. The only catch is that each of these strangers must have their own heartbreak story.

The hotel is run by Nico and his teenager daughter Loretta. Nico's wife left them when he refused to sell the hotel after a deathbed promise to his mother to change nothing in the hotel. The hotel is charming, and a bit lived in, nothing like the successful luxury hotel up the road run by Nico's best friend.

Edna, an elderly woman who dresses in black, is sharp as a tack. Eric is quiet and gets up early every morning to run in the Italian hillside. He carries a dog collar with him. Rachel is a vivacious young woman whose mother has Alzheimer's. Curtis spends all his time on his phone and can be a bit rude to everyone.

The group is slow to come together, but once they do, they all become very supportive of each other. We get the backstories of each of them, what their heartache is, and each story is moving as we become emotionally invested in them. The Italian setting is so vivid, if you close your eyes you will see the Italian countryside and smell the delicious fresh foods that Nico prepares for the group.

When Adrian shows up unexpectedly, Ginny is torn. She has to take a good look at her life and decide what she truly needs to be happy. The Little Italian Hotel would be good for a book club discussion, and you could have a great Italian-themed dinner to go with it.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Summer 2023 Blog Tours.

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick

The Secrets of Love Story Bridge by Phaedra Patrick
Published by Park Row Books ISBN 9780778309789
Hardcover, $25.99, 336 pages

When we meet Mitchell in Phaedra Patrick's novel, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge, he is at his job cutting off the locks that people have attached to the bridge where he works in Upchester, England. A famous boy band filmed a video for their song "Lock Me Up With Your Love" on that bridge and ever since the song became a hit, people have been attaching locks with messages of love on them to the bridge.

The locks could weigh down the bridge and cause problems so Mitchell and another man spend their days cutting them off. One day, Mitchell spots a lovely woman accidentally fall off the bridge after attaching a lock and he jumps off the bridge to rescue her.

Mitchell becomes famous when a reporter writes a story about his rescue. He is perplexed by the attention, as he is a private person. A widower, he lives with his 10 year-old daughter Poppy in a small apartment. His wife Anita died three years prior.

Mitchell feels guilt about Anita's death. Trained as an architect, he worked long hours for a firm in a town far away designing the Upchester bridge. This kept him away from his wife and daughter, but he felt it was a sacrifice he had to make to advance his career and build a future for his family.

After his wife died, he quit his job to take the bridge maintenance one with steady hours so he can care for his daughter. Mitchell doesn't have many friends, and doesn't realize how lonely he is until he meets Liza, Poppy's music teacher.

It turns out that the woman he rescued from the bridge is Liza's sister Yvette, who had disappeared a month before the fall. Mitchell wants to help Liza and her family find Yvette. He feels like he couldn't save his wife, but maybe he can save Liza's family.

Phaedra Patrick writes lonely people so well. Her previous novel, The Library of Lost and Found, is about a woman who works in a library, but doesn't have much of a life outside that. Patrick creates such empathy for these characters, and I particularly like how she writes children. Poppy is a realistic depiction of a 10 year-old, not a smart-aleck or worldly beyond her years. I also like that the main character of the story is a man.

Patrick clearly believes in family, not only the family we belong to but also the one we create ourselves. The Secrets of Love Story Bridge is a sweet story, with enough of a mystery to keep our attention. Fans of Elizabeth Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv would enjoy. I recommend it.

My review of The Library of Lost and Found is here.

Thanks for Harlequin for putting me on Phaedra Patrick's tour.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Friday 5ive- April 24, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post about five things that caught my attention during the week. In my quest to work on a small project a day, today's task was finding a place for a set of golf clubs and a new golf push cart. In a small NYC apartment that was a challenge, but hey, I have a lot of time on my hands, right?

1) Even though the weather has been colder than usual for April, we do have signs of spring. We took a walk on Sunday and found some welcome sights of lovely flowers to brighten our day.

2) The only place I go to on a regular basis is the laundry room in our building. I go at 6:45am and I'm the only there. Items that have been found in the machines are tacked up on a bulletin board. This week I saw this tacked up on there and have to wonder if the person who lost their "Here Comes The Madness" underwear will ever claim it. It's been a week and so far no takers. At least it give us all a well-needed chuckle.

3) We are all starved for live musical entertainment so it was great to watch a concert that was filmed in January before we all had to social distance from each other. CBS televised Let's Go Grazy: A Grammy Salute to Prince and it was fantastic. They had great performances from H.E.R and Gary Clark Jr. (Let's Go Crazy), Sheila E (The Glamorous Life), Beck (Raspberry Beret), Princess, featuring Maya Rudolph, (Delirious) and the great Mavis Staples with the Revolution (Purple Rain). The best concert I ever saw was Prince during his Purple Rain tour, and who can forget his Super Bowl concert when he played in the pouring rain? If you missed it, the link is here. Be prepared to dance.

4) I'm missing getting to attend book signings and hearing authors talk about their books, and this week I watched two Facebook Lives with Adriana Trigiani talking to Erik Larson about his Winston Churchill book, The Splendid and the Vile, and Colum McCann speaking about his novel Apeirogon, about two fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, who each lost a daughter. Both discussions were so fascinating and made me immediately go online to a local indie bookseller to order both books. If you like smart, interesting conversations about a wide range of topics, go to Adriana Trigiani's Facebook page here and watch them. Erik Larson here, and Colum McCann here.

5) I read three books this week. Melissa Hill's The Summer Villa, about three young women who meet when they share a vacation villa in Positano, Italy. It will take you away and there were a few interesting twists that I didn't see coming. I enjoy being surprised. My full review posts Monday.

The Secrets of Love Story Bridge is a wonderful novel by Phaedra Patrick about a lonely young widower with a 10 year-old daughter who rescues a woman who fell off a bridge. When the woman disappears after that, he becomes involved with the family in trying to help find her. I enjoyed Patrick's The Library of Lost and Found, and this one was just as good. She writes lonely people so well. My full review publishes next Wednesday.

I also read an early review copy of Curtis Sittenfeld's novel Rodham, which poses the question what if Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton? It's an intriguing concept, and I liked the last half of the story better than the first. Sittenfeld also wrote American Wife, which was a fictionalized account of the life of a woman very similiar to Laura Bush. I'm curious to know why Sittenfeld didn't use a fictional character to represent Hillary Clinton, as she did with Laura Bush. You have to remember that this is fiction, not nonfiction, although she weaves in many factual events into the book in a clever manner. My full review will post soon.

I hope you all stay safe, stay healthy and stay home.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick
Published by Park Row Books 9780778369356
Hardcover, $24.99, 348 pages

Martha Storm, the main character in Phaedra Patrick's The Library of Lost and Found, describes herself as "a guardian of books". As a volunteer at her local library, she is "an event organizer, tour guide, buyer, filer, job adviser, talking clock, housekeeper, walking encyclopedia, stationery provider, recommender of somewhere nice to eat lunch and a shoulder to cry on- all rolled into one."

Martha takes on projects for people- laundering and mending clothes, reparing a tapestry for the church, caring for a friend's fish and plants that he has no room for, and so much more that her home verges on looking like a hoarder's house. People take advantage of Martha- her boss asks her to work holidays since she doesn't have a family, people at the library ask her to run errands for them.

She lives in her parents' home, where she cared for her them until they both passed away. When her boyfriend moved to America, Martha gave up her chance at love and happiness to stay behind and care for them.

One day a man who owns a nearby used bookstore leaves a book for Martha at the library. Inside the book is an inscription-

"June 1985,

To my darling Martha Storm,

Be glorious always,

Zelda".

Zelda was Martha's grandmother who passed away in 1982, according to Martha's parents. How could this be? And the book is filled with stories that Martha wrote as a child with her grandmother. Martha sets out to learn where this book came from, much to the consternation of her younger sister Lilian (who doesn't treat Martha any better than everyone else).

Lilian tells her not to look any further, but Martha must find out if her beloved grandmother is still alive. As the story progresses we learn more about Martha and Lilian's childhood. Lilian was close to their father, who was harder on Martha (even unkind), discouraging her from writing her stories.

Patrick's story is sweetly moving, with characters who have many shades to them. It would be easy to make people villains (Martha's dad) or heroes (her grandmother Zelda), but each character does good things and not-so-good things. I found them to be realistic, especially the familial relationships.

I enjoyed seeing Martha learn to stand up for herself and not let people continue to take advantage of her. She decides to ask for things that she feels she deserves- like a a paying job at the library- and she grows as a person. Many readers will identify with Martha.

If you like Elizabeth Berg's The Story of Arthur Trulov and Night of Miracles, and Patrick's first novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, put the lovely The Library of Lost and Found on your list. (And the cover is so beautiful!)