This sweeping epic from Trigiani (Tony's Wife) follows three generations of the Tuscan Cabrelli clan as they deal with war, heartbreak, and family secrets. Octogenarian Matelda Roffo, knowing her days are numbered, reveals to her children and grandchildren the truth about her mother Domenica's seldom-discussed first marriage to the Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars. Flashback to 1939 when Domenica, while practicing as a nurse, recommends birth control to a patient, angering a local priest who forces her to leave her hometown. She ends up working at a hospital in France, where she meets McVicars while treating his neck wounds. The looming war takes McVicars away, but the two run into each other in Glasgow, Scotland, a year later and decide to marry. Tragedy strikes and Domenica returns to Tuscany to make a life for herself and her newborn Matelda. In the present, Matelda's revelations send ripples across the family and change the trajectory of her granddaughter's life. Some of the many subplots about minor characters distract from the emotional core of the story, but Trigiani's lush descriptions and trademark acute attention to family dynamics more than compensate. This saga of family and legacy is one to savor. Suzanne Gluck, William Morris Endeavor. (Apr.)

Trigiani (All the Stars in the Heavens) transports listeners to the Italian coastline, the Scottish Lowlands, and Marseille, France, in a family saga. Cabrelli family matriarch Matelda is near the end of a long life. Her granddaughter Anina is figuring out where life should take her, and after Matelda's hospital stay, she is determined to hear her grandmother's story. What unfolds is the story of love found, love lost, and the courage to love again as listeners are swept from one country to another and back to Italy leading up to World War II, the war and its fallout. Listeners learn about how "Britalians" were treated during the war, how a family began again after the conflict's end, and how to move forward from the past. Narrators Carlotta Brentan, Lisa Flanagan, Edoardo Ballerini, and Deepti Gupta bring to life the beauty, tears, love, and emotion that Trigani breathes into the characters. VERDICT This audiobook is not to be missed for longtime Trigiani fans and those who appreciate dual-timeline historical fiction.--Stephanie Charlefour

In the Italian coastal town of Viareggio, Matelda Cabrelli Roffo is at the last stage of her life, but the matriarch still has decades' worth of family stories to share. On the eve of her 81st birthday, Matelda offers her 25-year-old granddaughter Anina the contents of her jewelry case, a family tradition for brides-to-be. Of course, Anina selects the one item Matelda isn't ready to part with: a jewel-encrusted watch with a curiously upside-down facade. Matelda's attachment to the treasure--a rare sentiment in the Cabrelli family of jewelers--leads to questions about its origins and the unfolding of a family timeline Anina's never heard. In chapters alternating between the present and the nine decades leading up to Matelda's demurring, the Cabrelli family history is deftly illustrated through a long chain of strong women. At just 11 years old, Matelda's mother, Domenica Cabrelli, witnesses her best friend, Silvio, banished from Viareggio for being a fatherless troublemaker. Years later, Domenica, now a nurse, is exiled herself when the Catholic Church learns she's offered family planning advice to a young mother in distress. She lands in a convent in Scotland, where she continues nursing and plans to join the nunnery. Conveniently, love interrupts, and Domenica's marriage to a Scottish naval captain derails her plans, as does Italy's involvement in the war. With young Matelda in tow, Domenica longs for her hometown of Viareggio, a seaside paradise elderly Matelda cherishes until her last breath. Upon learning about the Cabrelli family struggles, sacrifices, and persistence, Anina changes, reconsidering the meaning of strength, family, and the types of love worth sacrificing for. Trigiani's adept character portrayals, deliciously described settings, and carefully considered details build momentum and intrigue from beginning to end. An epic multigenerational love story sweeping across coastal Italy, Southern France, and Scotland. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Matelda Roffo has a weak heart, and as her granddaughter, Anina, fusses over her, she contemplates the past and the lives of generations before her. Domenica Cabrelli, Matelda's mother, is the outspoken daughter of a jewel cutter and best friend to outcast Silvio Birtolini who grows up to be a nurse. When, in the 1930s, she offers family planning advice to one of her patients, she is sent from seaside Viareggio, Italy, to Marseille, then Glasgow. After losing her husband, she eventually makes it back to Viareggio, and to Silvio. Meanwhile, Anina isn't sure if she's ready to marry the lackadaisical Paolo, and she finds new purpose taking care of Matelda. Trigiani's latest, after Tony's Wife (2018), is an immersive multigenerational saga that centers around the women in one family in a seaside town. But along the way there are detours to a convent, a shipwreck, and WWII prison camps. As Matelda weakens, the two time lines intersect in unexpected ways, leading to an emotional conclusion that will have readers reaching for the tissues. A must for women's fiction collections.