Lead Review

Love a book set in Tuscany? All you need for proper romance is the wrong suitcase and a terrific Tuscan setting for a beautiful wedding! Right?

Izzy has just broken up with her beau and descends on the hotel. Birchy (no idea how you spell that as I listened to this as an audiobook), otherwise known as Sam, has suddenly become single. They each have a very similar suitcase and of course they get switched somewhere along the line! Sam is alerted to the young woman in Room 12, who just might have his suitcase, but she isn’t responding to his desperate calls (of course she is busy with friends, borrowing hair styling accoutrements, drinking fizz and whatnot). He has the misfortune of having to give a wedding speech in, um, well, in a set of cobbled together clothes (some of them not so fancy!) but of course that acts like a beacon to the girlie group who determines he must be the swappee.

I leave it to your imagination where this story might go, given that the novella is billed as heart-warming and ideal for a Valentine’s Day read. No spoilers from me!

I listened to it as an audiobook and the author, who competently reads her own work, is clearly an enthusiastic narrator, and assumes suitable voices for the characters. She obviously had fun doing this project. For me, at times, it felt a little over-excitable (Izzy sometimes sounded like a mix of Julies Walters’ Rosie in Mama Mia and Keira Knightley’s Juliet in Love Actually, sort of nasal with a bit of a condescending air) but that is purely a reflection of my taste.

A neat way to spend a couple of hours pretending you are attending a wedding in Tuscany. And if you don’t get to go in person, then all you have to do is read a novel set in Tuscany….