I’m guessing this is the final book in Ready’s Ghosted series, and it is such a heartwarming, truly romantic read. Ready has quickly become one of my favorite contemporary romance writers with her well-written, heartfelt, and engaging stories.
After poor Max was rejected by Fiona in Fated, I was hoping he’d find a woman who inspired passion and made him trust that love didn’t have to be destructive. Anna is the perfect love interest for him, but it takes an impulsive wish on her part using an antique necklace as a talisman for Max to even notice her. For her, it was love at first sight when, as his housecleaner, she accidentally interrupted him working from home. However, because she was so good at hiding herself with baggy clothes and oversized glasses, he never would have noticed her if it weren’t for the wish fulfillment: she wakes up the next day learning that’s they’ve been married for seven years and everyone but Max believes it. She knows it isn’t real, but Max has memories that he can’t explain. As they embark on a trip to Paris and St. Tropez with a plan to reverse the wish, they begin to realize that a housecleaner and a wealthy jeweler might have more in common than they’d ever imagined, but is it real, is it magic, or is it just a dream?
As with the other books in the series, Ready beautifully blends magical realism, romance and a bit of mystery to create unforgettable love stories that transcend space and time. Anna and Max are fully realized and the chemistry between them is off the charts. One of the most endearing elements of the book is how they see the best in each other which gives them the space and security they need to let go of the past and allow room for happiness, love, and laughter. Although this can be read as a standalone, I encourage readers to start with Ghosted and go from there. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Swift and Lewis Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
5*
All the best historical fiction seamlessly blends real events and people with fictional characters and, often, periods of historical figures’ lives from the author’s imagination. In this dual timeline story, McLaughlin introduces her readers to Marianne Baxter, a war widow and costume curator, who is invited to Verona, Italy in 1947 by a friend to research and restore three Victorian-era gowns for the reopening of a museum that was damaged during the war. When she finds a letter in a sleeve addressed to famed poet Christina Rossetti from her father, it begins a hunt for clues not only about the woman who wore the dresses, but also how they ended up in a walled-over room in the museum. In her postscript, McLaughlin mentions a cryptic quote from Christina Rossetti’s brother William, who accompanied her on her trip to Italy in 1865, which presumably was the inspiration for this fictionalized period of her life. “Had she [Christina] henceforth lived in Italy…she would, I believe, have been a much happier woman than she was.”
The story opens with a murder outside the museum, when a young man in the Italian Resistance is double-crossed by a compatriot who kills him for the emerald he was about to sell to raise money for their cause. In the letter, Christina’s father writes of a pendant that she would have found after his death, a probable connection to the murder. As Marianne begins to follow the clues as to what transpired during Christina’s visit to Italy, it angers the museum director, Alessandro Forni, whose cousin was the murder victim. As he tells her, “Wading into the unfamiliar waters of a foreign country, which has so recently endured a bitter war, can stir up nothing but ugly things lurking in the depths.” This foreshadows what becomes a suspenseful mystery that combines the restoration of various art forms with jewelry theft, the physical and emotional toll war’s death and destruction had on the people and the morally dubious choices they had to make to survive, and an epic love story that has faint echoes to the most famous star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet. So, it’s only fitting that most of the book is set in Verona.
McLaughlin chose a dual POV, featuring two creative women eighty years apart who went to Italy and found love when they weren’t looking. Their trajectories were different, but their time there profoundly changed them. Don’t be surprised if you end up going down a rabbit hole Googling information about the Rossetti family, especially after reading the conversations between Christina and her more famous brother, Dante, both of whom their mother referred to as the “storms” (versus their other siblings, William and Maria, who were the “calms”). The Lost Dresses of Italy is a compelling story with vibrant characters driven by greed, obsession, passion, and grief, one that you won’t quickly forget. Highly recommended.
I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Alcove Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.
