The Italian Escape by Catherine ManganMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
After being dumped by her boyfriend (and boss) after four years, Niamh Kelly is down in the dumps, especially because at 33 years old she's back living with her parents. So when her impossibly glamorous and successful older sister invites her to Italy for a week while she attends a conference on the Ligurian coast Niamh has nothing to lose.
Niamh falls in love with the Italian coastline, especially the small town of Camogli, and she quickly makes friends with two locals, a lawyer called Giorgio who she spills Aperol Spritz over at a cocktail party, and a glamorous, wealthy, Englishwoman called Emily.
At the end of her break Niamh decides she isn't going back to Dublin, instead she is going to open a salad and sandwich café in an old derelict building which belongs to Giorgio's brother. But when tragedy strikes in Dublin and her old life beckons what will Niamh choose?
I really enjoyed this book until close to the end, where I felt that Catherine Mangan ran out of pages or steam or something. There was a plot by unknown persons which fizzled away (being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers), followed by a counterplot and then a third solution. It was as though there was one too many sub-plots and so they didn't get sufficient attention. Also, there were too many coincidences. So overall, I knocked off half a star because it all ended so abruptly and felt like a bit of a rush. But I would definitely read another book by this author.
Recommended holiday reading, or just if you want to imagine you are on holiday.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
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