One Hot Italian Summer by Karina Halle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One Hot Italian Summer is a hot, Tuscan dream of a romance novel that came to my rescue and gave me this paradise to travel to in my imagination. It’s filled with beautiful, sun-soaked descriptions of the town of Lucca, Villa Rosa and the countryside as well as mouth-watering details on all the food and cocktails. So, in addition to the crazy, beautiful love story of Claudio and Grace, you’ll feel like you’ve taken an amazingly perfect Italian vacation.
Karina Halle’s writing style is so descriptive – full of textures, colours, sounds, emotions – that it pulls you right into the story in the most immersive way. From the first few sentences, you almost feel as though you are Grace, experiencing her writer’s block after the death of her writing partner and then later, the intense beauty of Tuscany.
Grace is living in the grey city of Edinburgh in a flat overlooking a cemetery and hoping for inspiration to strike. She is a shy, introverted soul while her late writing partner Robyn was the more gregarious of the two. Grace has been tasked with writing a book by the end of the summer but it’s already May and she has nothing as she’s frozen in grief and self-doubt.
Her new literary agent, Jana, sensing her troubles, offers Grace the use of a villa in hot and sunny Tuscany for a month to get her out of the gloom and with a promise that Grace will have a quarter of the book completed.
Grace arrives at Villa Rosa where there’s lemon trees, olive groves, sunshine and peace for the first couple of days. She experiences a peaceful bliss she hasn’t felt in a long time.
“It is the perfect summer day. I’m not saying that casually. I mean, it’s the summer day of your long-lost youth. It’s a summer day that captures all the feelings of how the world used to be. A summer day to write about.”
Grace, One Hot italian Summer
Until Claudio Romano and his son Vanni show up, Jana’s ex-husband and her son. Grace and Claudio fall into a friendship. They are two artists who help one another through the other’s struggles with the “muse” while developing this friendship.
Vanni is a great addition to the story, with his hurts and worries showing through in his discussions about his parallel dimension alter ego “Gio”.
Slowly, Claudio and Tuscany begin to work on Grace’s heart. And then the friendship becomes something more.
“You’re mine, Grace. More than my muse, more than a lover. I’ve never felt this way before about anything or anyone, and I … I know that if you just trust me, if you give me your heart, I will carry it with me. I will be kind and gentle with it. I will always keep it tucked next to mine. So that whatever happens in the future, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have your heart and you’ll have mine.”
Claudio, one hot italian summer
But can they get past her fears about her writing and Jana‘s and Vanni’s reactions to their relationship?
What you need to know about One Hot Italian Summer:
✔ Slow burn steamy romance
✔ Complete stand-alone
✔ Hot sexy summer romance set in stunning Tuscany
✔ Forced proximity
✔ Hot Italian single Dad/Sculptor
✔ Forbidden Love
✔ Author with writer’s block
WRITING STYLE: 5/5
PLOT: 5/5
WORLD-BUILDING: 5/5
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 5/5
ROMANCE: 5/5
HEAT: 5/5
Hope you enjoyed this travel to Tuscany in “One Hot Italian Summer” and understand why I gave it Five Stars. Please read my review of Karina Halle’s The One That Got Away.