Five Great Books set in NORTHERN ITALY
Novel part set in ROME – plus author QA
29th March 2021
This Changes Everything by Helen McGinn, novel part set in Rome.
Julia has two grown-up daughters, Annie and Jess, who struggle with their mother’s spontaneity – to wit her tendency to leap into marriage. Julia announces that she is going to Rome to meet with an old friend called Patrick, for a catch up after many years and the two of them generally want to just hang out together in the eternal city, not forgetting that they are due to scatter the ashes of a close mutual friend from long ago. Patrick was, as it turns out, Julia’s first love.
Jess, for one, is up a height and proposes they follow their mother to the city and stalk her, to ensure her well-being. After all, a woman of her mature years can’t look after herself and woe betide she ends up getting hitched. Again. Game on and the two sisters are about to check into their hotel but a sinkhole has developed, causing a vertical crack in the hotel building (sinkholes are really common in Rome, by the way). All the guests have had to be moved, including their mother. They have no idea now where she is staying (she has in fact decamped to Trastevere), so it is quite some fluke that they find her in this city of 3 million souls. They are only there for about 56 hours.
There is food with plenty of vino stops and visits to wonderful sites around the city, and art and ancients ruins aplenty. The sights and sounds are all there and vividly captured. Rome works its magic and it’s lovely to be there with them as a reader, particularly during Lockdown. There is however a considerable secret lurking, awaiting revelation and they return to their various homes around the UK, each a changed person. Secrets in the family are usually hugely divisive and the fallout would inevitably be significant – here it all pretty much got swept under the carpet as the book moves into the next part of the story and its conclusion.
What the author does particularly well is dovetail all the strands, so that the story has real cohesion. She looks back to Julia’s early life, when she spent a lot of time with her Aunt Tessa because Julia and her mother so often didn’t see eye to eye. She then picks up on the progression of the story as it unfolds in the present. She also has a gentle and singular voice and you can hear how much she is invested in her story and characters. This is a nice family narrative that will transport you to Rome.
And, I will say it…. this is a pretty awful cover and I wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up from the cover alone but hopefully it will work for others.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
Over to author Helen McGinn, we have some burning questions for her!
TF: I very much sensed when reading your novel that there was a lot of ‘you’ invested in the story, not necessarily the 
events, but a real personal touch and investment in the characters. is that something you consciously wanted to achieve?
HM: It wasn’t conscious but you’re absolutely right! The characters and events are of course fictional but there are definitely people and places in there I’ve had in my life, just all mixed up.
TF: Clearly Rome is a favourite destination of yours. How did you research the city and do you have any top tips for our readers?
HM: We went on our honeymoon over twenty years ago and went back again with the children about five years ago. It’s just one of those places that I dreamt of visiting for so many years and I absolutely loved it. To be surrounded by so much history all drenched in a culture that puts people, love, food and drink at the heart of it is impossible to resist! When we first went, we had nothing but a small guide book to go on but I’ve since read some wonderful books by people who’ve lived there and that really helped me understand the city as well as discovering the hidden gems to visit.
TF: There are several well-defined characters in the novel. Were you drawn more to any character in particular?
HM: I really loved Aunt Tessa. The idea of living in a cottage by the coast, painting for a living and delighting in the simple things – an omelette and a glass of wine for dinner – is just heavenly. Obviously she had sadness in her life, but I loved her spirit and warmth.
TF: I note that you have written books with wine at their heart, like The Knackered Mother’s Wine Guide – and I spotted mention of a bottle of Vermentino in the novel. Tell us more about your wine background and how did you first find your feet in the world of wine?
HM: It all started with a wine tasting at university. I went because it was the cheap way to drink wine with my friends but then fell in love with it as a subject. I was wine buyer for a big UK supermarket for almost a decade before I moved into writing and talking about it for a living. I’m an international wine judge, too. The beauty is you’ll never know it all. There’s always a new wine to discover.
TF: If you were going to sit down in the evening to read a book, what wine would you recommend to complement the reading? Do you have a particular favourite?
HM: It depends on my mood, really. If I’m in the garden, it’ll be a chilled glass of white or rosé, but if the fire’s lit and I’m curled up on the sofa then I’ll have a glass of red in reach. At the moment I’m loving Italian wines – and a Negroni, of course!
TF: What is next on the agenda for you in terms of writing and any ambitions you would care to share?
HM: I’m just putting the finishing touches to my second fiction book at the moment, due out in August 2021. My ambition was always to write a novel so I guess now it’s to keep writing more. And to keep getting better.
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Nice author interview, Tina and Helen! The premise sounds quite interesting too.
I do try not to judge a book by its cover, which is easier to do when it is a download. However, as you say, when in a physical bookshop, the first thing that you see is the book cover and it is that which will determine whether you stop to look or not! I have to say I am pretty indifferent to this particular cover.
Definitely a book I shall be considering, it’s a shame it has already been archived on NetGalley. 🙂