To Rome With Love

When one picks up a book titled To Rome with Love, one expects to get a happily ever after ending. This novel delivers that... and so much more. It is obvious in reading the book that the author is rather knowledgeable about Italian food and customs. One of the drawbacks to the book is that I spent a great deal of my time hungry! I did like the fact that the main characters are not naive young people. In our youth-obsessed culture, it is often all too easy to depict the heroine as a flighty or, dare I say it, barely legal. However, the author has given us two main characters that are mature and have been burned, and burned badly, but who have made great strides towards having a good relationship. I think that one of my very favorite aspects of the book is the discussion of the art for which Renaissance Italy is so famous.

As I've stated, there is a LOT of good in this book. There is also a little not-so-good. The fact in the book that caused the major dissonance for me is the contradiction between having the heroine being depicted as toned and slim while also having the depiction of being curvy and not "supermodel thin". Another disconnect for me was the fact that there really is too much not-translated Italian, and that was confusing.

Despite the communication breakdown (to an extent), the two main characters seem well-suited to each other when they both get out of the way of their romance. While there is a lot of dancing around the idea of a sexual relationship, actual sex scenes arè not that plentiful. Even so, the scenes are explicit. Because of this, I can only feel comfortable with recommending the book to readers 18+.

- HR Duby