Escape to Florence switches between the present and World War II in telling the story of two women. The first, Tori, is a British author in the present day living on an isolated English estate with a cold, hypercritical husband. The second is Stella, a fourteen-year-old girl who lives in a small town in Tuscany during World War II and works in the Resistance against the Nazis and Italian Fascists. She eventually escapes her abusive family (who adore Achille as much as they despise her) by running away with a young man, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. When Tori’s grandmother dies, she leaves Tori enough money to escape the marriage. She flees to Florence, a city she learned to love while visiting there with her grandmother. Tori researches her grandmother’s past and learns her grandmother was the lover of Achille Infuriati, a famous Formula One race car driver—and Stella’s older brother. This romance is to become the basis of a book she’s writing for a British publisher.
There isn’t quite a balanced approach to both women. Escape to Florence starts with Tori, and her story weighs more heavily, in terms of word count, as she adjusts to living in Italy, going through a divorce, and finding a new lover. The Italian aspects ring true to me, having lived for sometime in Northern Italy. Though the story was interesting, the ending seemed a bit flat as too little is resolved: the book is never published, the divorce never comes through, and Tori’s new romance is still too new to gel.
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Escape to Florence (Harper Paperbacks, July 11, 2023) is available through:
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