Partly set in the beautiful Cinque Terre villages of Italy.

  • Book: The Vernazza Effect
  • Location: Cinque Terre, San Francisco
  • Author: Roberta R Carr

Review Author: RosieA

Location

Content

The Vernazza Effect is a contemporary drama and revolves around the life of Ella Walker, who works as a premature baby nurse in a San Francisco hospital; she’s hit hard by the death of one her ‘her’ babies. On the home front Ella is in an increasingly abusive marriage; she reaches a critical point in her life when her own mother dies.

Her best friend Tara arranges for them both to go to Italy for a much needed holiday, but when the holiday ends Ella isn’t ready to head back; instead she stays for two more weeks on her own. Her destination is the beautiful north west coastal area around the Cinque Terre villages, and it is here that she finds the strength she needs to make the changes in her life. It’s also the place where she meets Jack, another solo traveller, and in their brief time together they find happiness.

This is a revised version of this story and after reading a selection of reviews I know that this new version is a winner. The writing flowed so well that it swept me up into the delightful descriptions of people and places. The Italian scenes were particularly picturesque. The story doesn’t end in Italy, for Ella must return home and face reality and it comes to her in several hard-hitting ways which I’m not going to mention and spoil for other readers. I really enjoyed being part of Ella’s journey as the author made me feel part of the story in just the right way to escape from my own world. I read this in a couple of sittings and it was one of those books that I could have carried on reading into the small hours. Highly recommended.

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