Title: A Portrait of Emily Price
Author: Katherine Reay
Publication: November 1, 2016
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Genre: Romance
Pages: 368
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SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Emily Price—fix-it girl extraordinaire and would-be artist—dreams of having a gallery show of her own. There is no time for distractions, especially not the ultimate distraction of falling in love.
But Chef Benito Vassallo’s relentless pursuit proves hard to resist. Visiting from Italy, Ben works to breathe new life into his aunt and uncle’s faded restaurant, Piccollo. Soon after their first meeting, he works to win Emily as well—inviting her into his world and his heart.
Emily astonishes everyone when she accepts Ben’s proposal and follows him home. But instead of allowing the land, culture, and people of Monterello to transform her, Emily interferes with everyone and everything around her, alienating Ben’s tightly-knit family. Only Ben’s father, Lucio, gives Emily the understanding she needs to lay down her guard. Soon, Emily’s life and art begin to blossom, and Italy’s beauty and rhythm take hold of her spirit.
Yet when she unearths long-buried family secrets, Emily wonders if she fits into Ben’s world. Will the joys of Italy become just a memory, or will Emily share in the freedom and grace that her life with Ben has shown her are possible?
REVIEW:
Like half my books, I swear I never remember where I picked them up. I think this one was donated to the little ice cream store where I used to work. I saw the front of the book read the description, and decided that I needed to read it. Of course, it would get lost in the shuffle that is my TBR piles. Of course lucky I was able to find this book on audible, where it seems that I am knocking out bigger chunks of my TBR lists.
Emily is an art refurbisher. She handled bigger things like smoke damage in homes and broken knickknacks, clocks, etc. She gets sent to Atlanta for work. Meets a gorgeous Italian man visiting his family and then finds out that she has lost her job. She falls in love with the man and he asks her to marry him. She does and they head to Italy to live. Will she be able to adjust to her new life and her new family that doesn’t seem to like her? I loved this book so much. I listened to a fair amount of it while cleaning my house. I didn’t want to stop listening to it. Full disclosure, the only reason I gave it 4 stars is because at times Emily seemed like such a massive whiner. Everything was always poor me, no one likes me, and she was a fixer which means that she couldn’t stop meddling in people’s affairs that weren’t hers.
This book is filled with such a magnificent description of the Italian countryside it makes me want to go back to Italy so bad and take my kids with me. This book a book about family and how they may not get along on the surface but when push comes to shove they do for their family and love each other. The relationship between Emily and Ben was a sweeping one. They fall in love in just a few weeks then they are married and living in his parent’s home. They grew together and learned about each other and still wanted to be with each other. There was a bump in the road at the end but it didn’t matter they still found each other. I see this author has other books, I have already added them to my Amazon wishlist and will be price-watching!
