When love made you stay already once, you cannot make the same mistake again

Synopsis

Julia Volpe’s Italian dream has turned into a nightmare.

Still living with her ex, Luca, a year after they’ve broken up, desperate to sell the dilapidated B&B that was meant to be their future, Jules knows she needs to leave. There are just two problems. Her passport has expired and she’s broke.

Not quite ready to ask her parents for help – at the ripe old age of twenty-seven – Jules decides to head as far away from Luca as she can to work on an olive farm until she has enough money to pay for her passport and a ticket back home.

Jules has sworn off love, but she hadn’t bargained on the beauty of Cividale del Friuli, the ancient Italian town on the banks of the gloriously blue Natisone river. As the community of farmers, neighbours and locals generously welcome her into their lives, Jules can feel her defences crumbling. But it’s when she meets Alex, broodingly handsome yet charmingly gallant, that Jules truly knows she’s in trouble. Because Alex has sworn off love too, and his reasons run deep enough for him to keep his word just as Jules is starting to reconsider her resistance to romance.

Live your very own Italian dream and let Leonie Mack whisk you away. Romantic, spell-binding, truly touching and perfect for all fans of Jill Mansell, Mandy Baggot and Sarah Morgan.

My review

When Julia Volpe came to Italy from Australia, she didn’t expect to fall in love with Luca and decide on not only staying with him, but also buy a B&B together. However, she didn’t expect to be still living with him a year after their break – up… Julia doesn’t want anything more than just leave Luca and also Italy behind, weren’t it for two problems: her passport  has expired and a ticket home is something she cannot really afford at the moment. So the next best thing is just leaving Luca and find a job at an olive farm in Cividale del Friuli, a place that Luca hopefully will never find. Even if Jules has sworn off love, she cannot stop falling for Cividale del Friuli and its community of nosy but genuine people. And staying with Alex, the man she met by chance, and is now apparently linked to the farm, makes her wonder is she perhaps will be making the same mistake she made with Luca. But Alex himself isn’t all that happy with Jules staying at his place, because being on his own just suits him fine, and he for sure wants to keep clear of love, for his own reasons…

If you are following my reviews, you know that stories set in Italy already score extra points for me. Add to that equation that it’s a romance AND it’s a book by an author that I truly love, well, can I truly dislike it?

The honest answer is “yes, it is possible…”. But, before I give Leonie Mack a heart attack, that was absolutely not the case, as I loved every bit about it!

The start of the book is a sad one, as it’s clear that Jules has hit rock bottom. I cannot imagine staying with my ex even a year after breaking up, but I could understand why Jules stayed, as she just doesn’t have any other option…

Now, the how bureaucracy is not completely clear to me, but knowing Italian bureaucracy, and having an idea about the complications of just flying to Australia, I had an idea how Jules ended up in this particular situation.

It angered me a little bit, to see how Jules was treated. She gave up a lot for love, she left her home, invested in a B&B that isn’t working and now she is left empty – handed. And learning that her ex and his mother always have been criticizing her, having remarks on everything she did, just angered me. Being in a country, not speaking the language, Jules for sure could use all the support she needed, but didn’t get it…

I was surprised by Jules’s courageous behaviour, not only when she decided to stay in Italy, but also her decision to just go away from Luca and his even in a way toxic behaviour, not knowing where the future would bring her. Of course Jules doesn’t go without a plan, as she is going to Cividale del Friuli and work at a farm for board and lodging.

While reading, I for sure could relate easily with all the Italian characters, those living in Cividale del Friuli obviously – as they are the good kind of people. It was recognizable to see how it all starts with wariness, but also nosiness, yet once Jules is ‘part of the team’, she truly is part of the family too. Even if being part of the family means to be subject to a lot of matchmaking…

And the person she is being matched to, is Alex. Alex, who she already met one evening and there for sure was something…

Of course as a reader, we know that it wouldn’t end on just that one night, but when Alex re-enters the scene, the contrast couldn’t be any bigger. Because the Alex we meet on the farm is for sure not the same Alex Jules spent several hours with… And let’s be honest, if I didn’t know the initial Alex, I don’t know if Alex would keep my interest…

Now, it needs to be said, Alex has been through a lot in the past, and it’s clear that he still hasn’t come completely to terms, he is still holding on to the past and is still grieving.

And learning those bits, made me understand him better, understand why he is hot one moment and cold the other.

In this book we see a story about two people who have lost love, in one or another, making them afraid to open up again, or give love a chance again.

But we see that Jules and Alex, despite their resolution to not make the “mistake” of falling in love again, not only understand each better than expected, also find someone that ignites something inside thought to be gone forever.

And that exactly is the beauty of this book, beside a wonderful setting (not at all biased here, even if my roots are more southern than the northern Friuli setting 😊). Love doesn’t come easy, love can come with pain, or can be tried to be stopped by pain and loss and fear. But love also make you courageous, wanting to put yourself out there, no matter how scary that may be. And it’s okay not finding that courage immediately, as there is a whole process to go through.

Leonie Mack wrote a wonderful story, capturing the Italian life perfectly, and also adding the typical dialect, but she mainly captured the difficulties and struggles of the heart, and how it can be conflicted in not wanting to make mistakes anymore, but also finding it impossible of not beating that little bit faster for someone very special…