NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away," writes
bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat
ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she finds, accidentally,
one summer while traveling with her husband, Fernando. There de Blasi is
befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, an elegant and
beautiful woman-of-a-certain-age who recounts her lifelong love story
with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of
Anjou.
Sicily is a land of contrasts: grandeur and poverty, beauty and
sufferance, illusion and candor. In a luminous and tantalizing voice,
That Summer in Sicily re-creates Tosca's life, from her impoverished
childhood to her fairy-tale adoption and initiation into the glittering
life of the prince's palace, to the dawning and recognition of mutual
love. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants,
his defiance of the local Mafia's grim will to maintain the historical
imbalance between the haves and the have-nots costs him dearly.
The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited
wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women-now
widowed-who once worked the prince's land alongside their husbands. How
the Sicilian widows go about their tasks, care for one another, and
celebrate the rituals of a humble, well-lived life is the heart of this
book.
Showcasing the same writerly gifts that made bestsellers of A Thousand
Days in Venice and A Thousand Days in Tuscany, That Summer in
Sicily, and de Blasi' s marvelous storytelling, remind us that in order
to live a rich life, one must embrace both life's sorrow and its beauty.
Here is an epic drama that takes readers from Sicily's remote mountains
to chaotic post-war Palermo, from the intricacies of forbidden love to
the havoc wreaked by Sicily's eternally bewildering culture.
