Sunflower Publishing Book Reviews

    Stories from La Notte By Ascolta Women Write SUMMARY: In this third anthology, the writers of Ascolta Women explore, deconstruct, and destabilize the stereotypes imposed on women and their activities traditionally associated with the night: witchcraft, prostitution, mysticism, healing, and death rituals. The anthology challenges the concepts of night and darkness as entities of fear and where women are vulnerable and powerless. Through prose, poetry, photos, and artwork, the oppressive binaries of women as virgin/whore, good/bad, witch/healer and hysteric/submissive are brought into stark relief. Instead, more complex, rich, nuanced and authentic lived experiences are offered.   Drawing on their diverse Italian and Italian-Australian heritages, the authors delve into folklore, family stories, critical research, and fantasy to bring narratives into, and out of, the imaginarium of the dark. In the process, we come to understand how light and dark have been p...

    In the Shadows of the Apennines by Kimberly Sullivan SUMMARY: The sleepy little Abruzzo mountain town of Marsicano seems about as far as Samantha can flee from her failed marriage and disastrous university career. Eager for a fresh start, Samantha begins to set down roots in her Italian mountain hideaway. At first, the mountain retreat appears idyllic, but an outsider’s clumsy attempts at breaking into the closed mountain community are quickly thwarted when the residents discover Samantha’s snarky blog ridiculing the town and its inhabitants. Increasingly isolated in her mountain cottage, Samantha discovers the letters and diaries of Elena, a past tenant and a survivor of the 1915 Pescina earthquake. Despite the fact that a  century separates the two women, Samantha feels increasingly drawn into Elena’s life, and discovers startling parallels with her own. MY REVIEW: T his is an intriguing and absorbing story about how someone from the past rescues someone...

    A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio ( translated by Anne Goldstein)   SUMMARY: Set against the stark, beautiful landscape of Abruzzo in central Italy, this is a compelling story about mothers and daughters, about responsibility, siblings, and caregiving. Without warning or explanation, an unnamed 13-year-old girl is sent away from the family she has always thought of as hers to live with her birth family: a large, chaotic assortment of individuals whom she has never met and who seem anything but welcoming. Thus begins a new life, one of struggle, tension, and conflict, especially between the young girl and her mother. But in her relationship with Adriana and Vincenzo, two of her newly acquired siblings, she will find the strength to start again and to build a new and enduring sense of self.     MY REVIEW: This is a complex portrait of Italy that you do not see in the guidebooks. It is a powerful story and digs deep into the meaning...

    Preserving Italy   Domenica Marchetti SUMMARY: A wonderful collection of over 150 recipes for conserves, pickles, infusions, sauces, which capture the flavours of Italy. It is beautifully presented with a personal note to introduce each recipe, suggestions for how to use what you preserve, comprehensive instructions and illustrated with excellent photographs. The book also includes recipes for making cheese, curing meats, infusing liqueurs and some confectionary. Domenica grew up in an Italian family. Her mother is a native of Chieti, Abruzzo. Consequently, she and her sister were shaping gnocchi and ravioli by the time they could see over the kitchen counter. Her father’s parents were from Molise and Lazio. They spent their summers travelling all around Italy when she was growing up.   MY REVIEW: I love all recipe books but this one has an honest and simple authenticity, written not just from a love of food but to uncover and preserve recipes whi...

    SUMMARY: Growing up in Brisbane in the 1970s and 80s, Zoë Boccabella knew if you wanted to fit in, you did not bottle tomatoes, have plastic on the hallway carpet, or a glory box of Italian linens. Though she tried to be like 'everyone else', refusing to learn Italian and even dyeing her dark hair blonde, Zoë couldn't shake the unsettling sense of feeling 'half-and-half' - half Australian, ‘mezza italiana’ - unable to fit fully into either culture, or merge the two. Years later, she travels to her family's ancestral village of Fossa in Abruzzo and discovers a captivating place of medieval castles, mystics, serpent charmers and witches. As Zoë stays in the house that has belonged to her family for centuries, the village casts its spell. She begins to realise the significance of her Italian heritage and discovers old family traditions which become a treasured part of her life. MY REVIEW: The book starts with a harrowing description of the L’Aquila ea...

    Finding Valentino By Angela Di Sciascio SUMMARY: Angela Di Sciascio's father can no longer describe his past, lost in a world ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease. Deciding not to let his story fade, Angela embarks on a voyage that takes her through four seasons in her father’s Italy, reconnecting to her ancestry and absorbing all of its chaos, beauty and style. Meal by meal at her father’s family table and step by step through the Italian countryside, she slowly comes to understand the young Valentino who left for the new world. Along the way, she discovers the simple pleasures of rustic polenta high in the mountains, pesto on the Ligurian coast and shares melt-in-your-mouth food with friends in boisterous Rome. But she is always drawn back to the small hamlet tucked in the embrace of the Abruzzo mountains and the cuisine that feeds her soul, sharing with us her family traditional recipes, as well as the joy of finding her father’s home.   MY REVIEW: I think ...

    Gran Sasso   By Gary Parkins SUMMARY: I n 1943, Mussolini is deposed and taken to a secret location. But in London, Winston Churchill is troubled. With Mussolini gone, there is nothing to stop Italy's Communists from forming a Bolshevik government in the north. It is an unbeatable nightmare scenario. The stakes could not be higher. If they lose Southern Europe to Stalin, the Allies would lose the war in Europe.  Churchill attempts a desperate gamble. The only thing that can head off the Communists' takeover is to put Mussolini back in power, but naturally, Churchill cannot be seen to arrange such a thing. Could Churchill's agents persuade Hitler's forces to rescue Mussolini without tipping their hand? Churchill sends in his top Italian SOE agent, Major George Huntington on a secret mission to Rome to spread the rumour that Churchill wants Mussolini found and put on trial in London for war crimes. Hitler is enraged and this news and sends his top SS Comma...

    Home to Italy By Peter Pezzelli SUMMARY: When her father's best friend returns to Abruzzo, Lucrezia, a beautiful widow, finds herself drawn to this handsome American who is also haunted by tragedy, and together they embark on a passionate relationship that heals the pain of the past and gives them both a second chance at love. In this delightful, moving novel, Peter Pezzelli brings to life the earthy sensuality of Italy's Abruzzo region— the smell of just-baked bread wafting through the village piazza; the shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalks first thing in the morning; groups of cyclists dotting the mountain roads—and spins a story of May-December romance as sharp and delicious as the olives of Villa San Giuseppe .   MY REVIEW: This is a lovely, easy read and feel-good book. The perfect read for anyone seeking an escape to the Italian countryside. It is a story about the trials and tribulations of life. Marriage, love, work, friends and family. Sometimes...