A big, bold, brash Italian American family is at the heart of Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story. This fun-loving, bittersweet novel by Terri-Lynne DeFino orbits around Varina Palladino, a hard-working widow. She's 70 years old, happily single and managing the family's local Italian food specialty shop in Wyldale, N.J. Many characters and plot lines are threaded through Varina's life. This includes Varina's spry 92-year-old mother, Sylvia, who is determined to find a romantic match for Varina. With the help of Donatella, Varina's ne'er-do-well daughter, Sylvia secretly advertises Varina's singlehood. Their bold plan backfires at the same time that Varina's three adult children face their own life challenges. This includes Dante, running the family construction business and flirting with divorce, and Davide, the owner of a hair salon, who is at odds with his erratic younger sister, Donatella, who just can't seem to get her life on track. There's also good-natured, reliable Paulie, once the Palladino family's neighbor and now their border; he was pseudo-adopted by Varina after he came out as gay and his own family disowned him. When Varina, on her birthday, decides to celebrate by fulfilling her lifelong dream to travel, her decision becomes just one of many life-changing transitions made by each member of the family.
DeFino (The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers [and Their Muses]) serves up a hilarious and colorful contemporary epic--filled with the many passions of love, family fireworks, authentic recipes and Italian superstitions and expressions--in which lovably flawed characters wholeheartedly charm readers. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines