Introduction

Not your typical Italian love story...

Smart, career driven Jamie had not intended to fall in love. And to a foreigner no less, an Italian who doesn't reveal his heritage at first. Jack is short for John, he tells her, but she soon discovers that John is short for Giovanni. Insanely handsome and intense but unreadable, Giovanni is a man of few words. When after two months together she accompanies him to his cousin's wedding in Italy, Jamie learns that he hasn't been back to the troubled family estate in ten years, but with one step upon the rich Italian soil covered in ancient vines, it's as if he never left. Suddenly his language is no longer her language, and Jamie is drawn inexplicably into an Italy that outsiders rarely see--a crumbling villa, an old family scandal, a tragic mother, an estranged father, and a host of spirited Italian cousins. Jack is finally forced to face the destiny he's been renouncing; and Jamie makes a rash decision, unaware that it will change her life forever.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

The wheels lift off the tarmac and suddenly his name is not one syllable but three: Jack, now a melodic Giovanni, as it might be sung in an Italian opera. This is somewhat baffling for Jamie, who until this moment had known him as a man who kept his heritage secured in the vault of his boot-shaped soul. He might cook in Italian, curse in Italian, call his mother on Sunday and speak Italian, and yet if Jamie mentioned an Italian restaurant for dinner, he’d redirect the discussion to Chinese or Thai. If an Italian tourist asked him in struggling English for directions on the street, he’d answer in struggling English. He has American friends, at work at least. In fact, when she first met him she’d thought he was American. On his voice mail he sounds American. No Rs are rolled. ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Jamie quits her job, moves to New York, gets entangled in the vineyard, is she losing herself? Must one lose oneself in order to truly love? Do you feel as if you’ve lost part of the person you once were?

2. What did you learn from the book that you didn’t already know about the cultural differences between the America and Italy?

3. How does wine serve as a metaphor for love?

Weblinks

»	Author Jackie Townsend's web site
»	Reading Guide

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