Very Valentine
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Overview
The Angelini Shoe Company, one of the last family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village, has been making exquisite wedding shoes since 1903 but now teeters on the brink of financial collapse. To save their business from ruin, thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli—apprentice to and granddaughter of master artisan Teodora Angelini—must bring the family's old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century. Juggling her budding romance with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge presented by a prestigious department store, Valentine returns to Italy with her grandmother in a quest to build a pair of glorious shoes to beat their rivals. And in the course of discovering her true artistic voice and so much more in la bella Italia, Valentine will be turning her life and the business upside down in ways she never expected.
Synopsis
The Angelini Shoe Company, one of the last family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village, has been making exquisite wedding shoes since 1903 but now teeters on the brink of financial collapse. To save their business from ruin, thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli—apprentice to and granddaughter of master artisan Teodora Angelini—must bring the family's old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century. Juggling her budding romance with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge presented by a prestigious department store, Valentine returns to Italy with her grandmother in a quest to build a pair of glorious shoes to beat their rivals. And in the course of discovering her true artistic voice and so much more in la bella Italia, Valentine will be turning her life and the business upside down in ways she never expected.
Publishers Weekly
This first-in-a-trilogy is a frilly valentine to Manhattan's picturesque West Village, starring a boisterous and charmingly contentious Italian-American family. Valentine Roncalli, adrift after a failed relationship and an aborted teaching career, becomes an apprentice to her 80-year-old grandmother, Teodora Angelini, at the tiny family shoe business. While Valentine struggles to come up with a financial plan-and shoe design-to bring the Old World operation into the 21st century, her brother, Alfred, is pushing Gram to retire and sell her building for $6 million. It's not all business for Valentine, of course: handsome and sophisticated Roman Falconi, owner and chef at a posh restaurant, is vying for her heart. Bestselling Trigiani channels ambition and girl-power, but is surprisingly reserved-and retro-when it comes to romance: "[O]ur relationship has to build slowly and beautifully in order to hold all the joy and misery that lies ahead," thinks Valentine. Still, this genteel and lush tale of soles and souls has loads of charm and will leave readers eager for the sequel. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Editorials
Lead Review -
" Sex and the City meets Moonstruck … this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style."Booklist
"[Very Valentine] will have readers who love romantic novels...swooning. Trigiani’s closing is satisfying, even as it paves the way for the lovable heroine to reappear in a planned sequel."Roanoke Times
"Trigiani has certainly not lost her ability to breathe life into everything she writes."Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Adriana Trigiani listens to her readers, then gives them what they want. That’s why they’ll be ecstatic about her newest novel…"BookPage
"No one ever reads just one of Trigiani’s wonderfully quirky tales. Once you pick up the first, you are hooked..... Trigiani fills her pages with snappy dialogue and luscious descriptions.... Reading Very Valentine is like tucking into a plate of homemade manicotti: irresistible and delicious."Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Well-crafted work with sometime lyrical, sometimes flat-out-funny writing."Marie Claire
"Load up on cappuccino and biscotti before getting lost in the super froth of Adriana Trigiani’s romance-soaked novel, Very Valentine"Boston Globe
May be [Triginai’s] best work to date… Delightful, energetic… Trigiani is a seemingly effortless storyteller."People
“ Sex and the City meets Moonstruck … this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.”Publishers Weekly
This first-in-a-trilogy is a frilly valentine to Manhattan's picturesque West Village, starring a boisterous and charmingly contentious Italian-American family. Valentine Roncalli, adrift after a failed relationship and an aborted teaching career, becomes an apprentice to her 80-year-old grandmother, Teodora Angelini, at the tiny family shoe business. While Valentine struggles to come up with a financial plan-and shoe design-to bring the Old World operation into the 21st century, her brother, Alfred, is pushing Gram to retire and sell her building for $6 million. It's not all business for Valentine, of course: handsome and sophisticated Roman Falconi, owner and chef at a posh restaurant, is vying for her heart. Bestselling Trigiani channels ambition and girl-power, but is surprisingly reserved-and retro-when it comes to romance: "[O]ur relationship has to build slowly and beautifully in order to hold all the joy and misery that lies ahead," thinks Valentine. Still, this genteel and lush tale of soles and souls has loads of charm and will leave readers eager for the sequel. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
In Trigiani's (Big Stone Gap; Rococo) launch of a new trilogy, 33-year-old Valentine attempts to save her family's custom shoe business while dealing with family and relationship dramas set against the backdrop of New York City and Italy. If she's going to realize her dream of becoming a master shoemaker, Valentine must come up with a plan to rescue the financially troubled family wedding shoe business and prevent her brother from selling the building (located in Greenwich Village and worth millions) for a quick profit. In addition, Valentine has a new man in her life, sexy restaurateur Roman, who is just as dedicated to his business as Valentine is to hers-leaving little time for romance. In the midst of it all, Valentine travels to Italy with her grandmother Theodora to buy supplies and later rendezvous with Roman for her birthday. Things go well for Valentine professionally, but her personal life is more up in the air. This, as well as the many entertaining characters introduced, leaves plenty of material for the two books to come. Nicely written with vivid images of high fashion, New York City, and traditional Italy, Trigiani's latest is sure to be eagerly anticipated by her many fans and attract some new readers. Recommended for all public libraries.
—Karen Core