For anyone that has been to Siena, or wandered through the countryside and other Medieval towns of Tuscany... the story comes to life. Romance, good vs evil, generations-old wars between and within families, and the beauty of the setting are all here.

I read this book on my own; it was not a pick of my book clubs. If you read it for book club, I can tell you members will either love it or hate it - there's not really an in-between. But that's a good thing because it will spark a lot of talk and debate. I enjoyed it for the adventure, play on history, suspense and romantic twists, but it won't be for everyone...

Too s l o w for the first 300+ pages. Then the end has about a million different surprises.

Chapters alternate between the original Giulietta and Romeo (Siena, 1300s, pre-Shakespeare) and modern day Juliet and her Romeo. The time has come for the "plague on both your houses" to end. Romance, suspense, action, drama, history - the book has it all, including beautiful Siena.

Juliet inheirts a key to a saftey deposit box in another country.She thought she would be inheirting money from her beloved aunt. She travels abroad to find out what is in the saftey depoist box. There is only a cheap copy of Romeo and Juliet and journal notes.In the process of trying to figure out what the journel means, she discovers secrets about her family history.

I wanted to like this book a great deal more than I did. It was a bit too ambitious and broad in scope and I think that's what did it in. By the end it was Raiders of the Lost Ark meets trying-to-be-Shakespeare meets The Davinci Code. Scaling some things back would have been more effective, and characters who were more multi-faceted instead of so one dimensional and cliche would have been more interesting as well. More descriptive prose about Siena and the historical aspects would have been better than over-reaching attempts at writing in a Shakespearean style. Having said all that, I'll take the blame somewhat as this really isn't a bad book. It simply wasn't what I was expecting, and perhaps my expectations were off.

Part treasure hunt, part search for answers to secrets in the family tree, part sibling distrust and rivalry, part romance, and part supernatural story of curses, blood feuds and determination to find revenge --the book is intriguing. The modern conflicts are anchored in a quest to uncover the true story behind the legendary Romeo and Juliet and find their missing artifacts. The reader, as did Julie, will find it hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but everything is revealed in an ending full of surprises.

The book goes back and forth from past to present. The characters are vibrant. Juliet goes to Italy after her grandmother dies and the truth unfolds as to what had really happened to her family.
You root for her all the way!

We loved this book! It is the one of very few books I really wanted to read again later (and I have!)

I loved this book. Some in our book club found it cheesy but I thought it was a beautiful love story with an interesting twist on the classic tale. It really makes you want to visit Siena immediately!

I have never read Shakespere's "Romeo and Juliet" and was looking forward to reading this modern version of the story. The first three chapters were really very good and kept me intrigued. However, soon after the story began to drag and boy did it drag. It took until approx. page 300 for the story to pick up and by then I just wanted to get it over with. There is some romance, but very little, and most of that seemed forced. With a lack of connection to the characters and a book stuffed with words but no meat, this book is not one that I would recommend. I truly wanted to love this book and just didn't.

I love this book. Have now "read" it once and "listened" to it twice. It's a very enjoyable read.

Audio book performed by Cassandra Campbell.

Moving back and forth between the 1340 “true” story of Giulietta Tolomei and Romeo Marescotti, and the modern day Julie Jacobs’s efforts to find her mother’s legacy, this is a novel that tries to be a romantic epic and a suspense thriller. The result is that it doesn’t quite succeed on either count.

I was pretty caught up in the 1340 story. Although some of the “coincidences” strained credulity, I was willing to go along because it’s a story handed down through generations. But the modern story just irritated me. There were far too many double-crosses, and triple-crosses. People show up very conveniently and without good explanation. My biggest complaint is that Julie behaves so stupidly – repeatedly. On the plus side, Fortier did a very good job of putting the action in the city of Siena and the surrounding Tuscan countryside. The location is practically a character; it is so vividly drawn and so central to the story. She also does a decent job of keeping the plot moving and building suspense. Cassandra Campbell’s narration on the audio book was very good.

I do not recommend it for book clubs because I don't think there is enough to discuss.

This is one of my all time favorite books! It has romance, mystery and adventure. It reminds me of one of the novels that Catherine Morland would have read in Northanger Abbey.