Title: The Sicilian Inheritance
Author: Jo Piazza
Release Date: April 2, 2024
Format: Hardcover
Where to Buy: Bookshop.org
My Rating: 4.75/5
Summary
Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.
Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and prove her birthright. Flashing back to the past, we meet Serafina, a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly it isn’t long before a woman challenging the status quo finds herself in danger.
As Sara discovers more about Serafina she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother.
My Review
This book got me out of a pretty deep reading rut. It is odd because it was a genre that I do not typically gravitate toward. I had seen a lot of hype about the book though from some bloggers that I trust. Plus it was set in Italy and that almost guarantees that I will like it to some degree.
I really loved the mystery of this novel as well as the development of Sara as she grapples with the past and her current demons. I was expecting a bit of a thriller, but I was not expecting to genuinely question if Sara was going to be making it out of Sicily alive. Piazza reveals the tale of Sara’s failed marriage and restaurant through Sara’s introspection. I enjoyed this method. I slowly got glimpses into what happened. Readers get a front row seat to not only what happened but how Sara is processing it. She is processing that maybe she and her soon to be ex-husband were never going to be right for each other. We get to understand what happened to the restaurant and how it all got away from her.
The history behind the novel, a time in a very traditional country when women were able to operate autonomously was absolutely fascinating. I knew that many Italian immigrants were Sicilian, but I suppose I never thought about what happened to the towns where they came from. Piazza did a fantastic job of weaving the history of Sicily into the story. Serafina had a hard life that was likely the story of millions of other women like her. A mother who didn’t support her continuing her education, pregnant too early, giving up on the future she dreamed of to take care of her family. What was particularly impressive was how Piazza portrayed the other women in Serafina’s Sicily. While they were the supporting characters, each woman had a great story to tell and more importantly they each had an impact on the woman that Serafina would become.
It would be remiss of me to not mention the beautiful scene setting that Piazza does. I have never been to Sicily personally, but I now have images in my head that feel like I have. Piazza also does a great job describing both the city of Palermo and the mountain villages. Both have their good and bad and everywhere has its own personality. I particularly love that Sicily still works so hard to maintain its identity outside of Italy at large. I have now added Sicily to my ever growing list of places that I must see.
I won’t reveal the twist at the end of the novel, but I will say I did not see it coming. I think I actually audibly gasped. I know when a book illicits that kind of response from me that I have to write about it. Pick up this generational murder mystery next time you are book shopping. You won’t regret it, I promise.
