Love At First Sight by Jessica Gilmore
Love
at First Sight
SUMMARY
She's in love.
Just with the wrong man . . .
Nora is done with dating, but still dreams of finding the one. So when a
handsome stranger comes to her rescue one night and vanishes leaving only a
business card, it's like a scene out of a romcom . . .
It doesn't take long for the two to 'bump' into each other again, and Nora
falls for the perfect-on-paper Gabe. Only a few weeks later, he invites her to
Sicily, and she cannot believe her luck!
Until Gabe is forced away for work, leaving her alone with his big and warm
family in gorgeous Sicily who welcome her with open arms. Everyone but Luca,
his older and distrustful brother, who is always around.
Soon Nora finds herself on the holiday of a lifetime . . . just with the WRONG
brother.
MY REVIEW:
When I first started reading
the book, Love at First Sight, I thought it would be a typical ‘rom-com or ‘beach
read’ - a book you can take on holiday,
which is good enough to keep you engaged but not so serious as it will spoil
your holiday. However, as I progressed,
I felt there was much more to this story. The layers and themes added to the
drama and made it so much more interesting.
Essentially, this is Nora’s
story, her life, past present and future. Yet, the author peels back layers to
reveal a parallel narrative, the story of her mother Lottie.
Each chapter starts with a
postcard entry from the narrator's mother, Lottie who went backpacking in
Europe as a teenager. The first entry starts in 1995 from Paris, then Vienna,
“Mutter und
Vater
Oh, Vienna! With your boulevards, tea rooms and
cakes! I am going to move here instead of Paris so I can waltz, eat sachertorte
and have a little dog who I will walk through the park before another coffee
and more cake”
and then Florence, Italy, each with more passion
and excitement than the last. There simply is no way to tour Europe and not be
awestruck by its scenic beauty, epic history dazzling artistic and culinary
diversity. The writing conveys this.
“Ciao Mamma et
Papa
Italy is where I
am meant to be.. bella Firenze. I didn’t know anywhere could be so perfect but
Florence really, really is (as is the ice cream)
Tutti amore,
Lottie”
So as the book progresses,
we follow Lottie on her pilgrimage to see beautiful places and make connections
and memories. When she is in Florence, she meets Erik, the handsome Swedish
backpacker and the ensuing romance leads to the birth of Nora. However, travel
can also alter one's worldview, and enlarge one's thinking and vision of the
world, and so Nora’s own wanderlust adds another element woven into the story.
Still, this is a romcom so there
has to be a Bridget Jones doomed quest, not for self-improvement but for love
and there has to be some endearing moments of humour. Boxes ticked but at the
beginning I wondered if Nora was too desperate, too vulnerable and too desperate
to find a man.
‘“But we call
kiss our fair share of frogs before we find our prince, said Dai.
“Well, I for one
have kissed my last frog,” replied Nora. “It's dating I am done with, not love.”
She wanted pyjamas and a takeaway on a Saturday night, long walks across Hampstead
Heath talking about nothing and yet finishing each other’s sentences. She
wanted a perfect fit. Her perfect fit.’
Reading on, I felt
I understood what Nora wanted and it was more of a quest for meaning in her
life than for pleasure. We know that she lost her beloved grandparents. We know
that she lost her mother five years earlier and we know that her mother
experienced ‘ love at first sight’ when she bumped into Erik at a gelateria in
Florence. They spent a perfect few days together before Lottie returned home
realising she was pregnant. This sense of transience, this phase when you are so
besotted with someone is the illusive emotion which Nora wants to recreate. I
really felt invested in this and I wanted to read on. I wanted Nora to find her
Prince Charming.
Following a ‘damsel in distress
moment, where Nora is nearly run over by a motorbike, she is rescued by a handsome
Italian. Believable? Yes, Absolutely. I willed Nora to track down Gabriel Catalano
and start a relationship. However, that is not real life so even when he whisks
her off to meet his family who just happen to own a vineyard on the slopes of Mount
Etna, something about the romance is not right. And then, there is the brother,
Luca.. prickly, a little offhand at first, proud, detached. In fact, a modern-day
Mr Darcy, a smouldering, aloof and romantic hero.
I felt reading this that there
were elements of some of my most favourite books, from Pride and Prejudice, to Bridget
Jones and Room with a View. Indeed, there are many references to it in the
story. You could say perhaps that Love at First Sight is a modern adaptation of
EM Forster’s classic book. I saw the film many years ago yet its timeless
allure echoes that of modern romantic comedies, drawing readers into the
captivating dance of emotions. The story revolves around the classic
"will-they, won't-they" tension of a young woman, Lucy Honeychurch,
who is engaged to Cecil Vyse but finds herself in love with George Emerson. The
parallels with Nora and Luca are deliberately similar but I think this is a clever
kind of updated romantic narrative where the heroine falls for the wrong man
before realizing her mistake and ending up with the true hero.
There are some wonderful insights towards
the end of the story where Nora talks to her friend Anna about whether she should
marry Gabriel.
“The only real
question, Nora, is do you love Gabe enough to marry him? Life isn’t a film. No
one said it was fun or easy. Your mother’s romance with Erik wasn’t real life.
They had a perfect romance but a love story is a life together, like your grandparents
who stayed together through all the years. They got on each other’s nerves
sometimes but cared enough to make it right when they went through a bad patch.”
In this speech, we feel that
the author concurs with Austen's view of the enduring nature of true love, and Nora has more in common with Bathsheba Everden than Elizabeth Bennett. In Thomas Hardy’s Bathsheba, we find a
financially independent, modern young woman pursuing her business with passion
and sense, yet failing to pursue romance with the same insight.
Reader investment is reader engagement.
Did I love the book? Yes, I did. I felt empathy for Nora and I was curious for
her future. The story had drama and uncertainty. It was compelling and tantalizing.
I thought that there were really good descriptions of the characters, they were
realistic, genuine and endearing. Then of course there is the setting. The
vivid descriptions of Italy and the Italian way of life will instantly transport
any reader to a holiday state of mind.
I will not provide a spoiler
here but at the end of the story, Nora decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps
and go travelling. This is where I reached for my packet of tissues!
‘Nora looked
over at a framed photo of her mother just as she set out on her life-changing
trip, hair in plaits, a rucksack half her size by her side, an excited grin taking
up half her face and blew it a kiss. “ I need your help Mum, she said. “Tell me
I can do this.” Reading the travel planner, it was as if her mother was back
with her, advising her, believing in her. Loving her.’
Why I recommend
this book
Essentially it is about one
girl's impulsive bid to "find herself" after the death of her mother and
a relationship with her ex breaks down. Yes, it's about relationships and how
we want to be loved. We are all in love with the idea of being in love so we chase
this elusive feeling, trying to feel the spark and intensity of a new passion. For
Nora, there is an emotional response of euphoria yet it is compounded by a nagging
feeling that she is in love with the wrong man. Her finance’s brother Luca,
arrogant and slightly misunderstood, just like Mr Darcy is more than he appears
and that is the appeal. Falling in love with the wrong person doesn’t mean we don’t
deserve to be loved.
In the same way that Italy gave
Lucy Hornchurch insights into her life back at Windy Corner and it changes her
perspective of herself, Italy does the same for Nora. She works through the
confusion of the experience. Will they… won’t they… The reader will not find
out until the last chapter whether Nora does indeed find the realistic and
sustainable love she seeks.
The portrayals of Sicily and
Italian family life are captivating and are a perfect setting for a summer
romance and so easy to visualise a vineyard on the foothills of Mount Etna
‘A graceful
stone-built villa, huge flower-filled pots and trees in the front courtyard.
The windows were shuttered, giving the villa a fairy-tale feel. There was a
heady scent of lemons, oranges and greenery tinged with salt – a sure sign that
the sea was not too far away.’
The eloquent writing style
is descriptive, skillfully ensnaring the reader's attention from the very first
page to the final one. I commend the heartwarming tone and subliminal message
that none of us are perfect but if we can find an inner strength, we will stay
true to ourselves.
“All of Sicily is a dimension of the imagination.”
- Leonardo
Sciascia, 1921-1989, Writer
AUTHOR BIO:
A charity-working,
dog-walking, child-wrangling, dust-ignoring bookworm, Jessica lives in the
beautiful and historic city of York with one patient husband, one daughter, one
very fluffy dog, two dog-loathing cats and a goldfish called Bob.
As daydreaming is her very favourite hobby and
she loves a good happy-ever-after Jessica can't believe she's lucky enough to
write romance for a living. Say hi on Twitter at @yrosered or visit
sprigmuslin.blogspot.com
Social Media Links –
https://www.instagram.com/yrosered/
BOOK BLURB:
Published
by Orion (4 July
2024) Available in paperback & kindle from Amazon
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