Rome in Love by Anita Hughes | Book Review #137

The Bookish Island's Book Review:
Rome in Love by Anita Hughes

Are there spoilers?

I tried to not include any.

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Title: Rome in Love 

Author: Anita Hughes

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Pages: 314

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Published: 2015

Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Women's Fiction, Fiction, Italy

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Date Read: January 4, 2019

Rating: ★★★★.5☆

From the author of LAKE COMO comes the story of a young actress who lands the lead in a film that is shooting in Rome, bringing about difficult life choices, new friendships, and a chance at love.

When Amelia Tate is cast to play the Audrey Hepburn role in a remake of Roman Holiday, she feels as if all her dreams have come true. She has a handsome boyfriend, is portraying her idol in a major motion picture, and gets to live in beautiful Rome for the next two months. 

Once there, she befriends a young woman named Sophie with whom she begins to explore the city. Together, they discover all the amazing riches that Rome has to offer. But when Amelia’s boyfriend breaks up with her over her acting career, her perfect world begins to crumble. 

While moping in her hotel suite, Amelia discovers a stack of letters written by Audrey Hepburn that start to put her own life into perspective. Then, she meets Philip, a handsome journalist who is under the impression that she is a hotel maid, and it appears as if things are finally looking up. The problem is she can never find the right time to tell Philip her true identity. Not to mention that Philip has a few secrets of his own. Can Amelia finally have both the career and love that she’s always wanted, or will she be forced to choose again?

With her sensory descriptions of the beautiful sites, decadent food, and high fashion of Rome, Hughes draws readers into this fast-paced and superbly written novel. Rome in Love will capture the hearts of readers everywhere.

The Rating:

My Review:

Rome in Love was my first book of 2019 and by luck, it also happened to be a good one. 
I'm so happy I had to pick this book up. (I say had to but I totally picked it for Romanceopoly's Women's Avenue.)

Rome in Love was a good book with beautifully detailed descriptions or Rome, the food, the fashion, everything. And I loved that about Anita Hughe's writing. Her way of telling the story is so enticing. Like I want to go to Rome and re-read this book. To eat the food that Amelia ate and see the sights she saw. It's that good. 
I'm also reminded of Santorini Sunset because the descriptions in that were just as beautiful. And one of the reasons I got this book was because I fell in love with that. 

These are totally vacation books. You take her books on vacation and just lay back with a drink by your side and enjoy the book along with the sights.

I loved Amelia she was such a cool woman. Not only was she passionate about her acting career but she was out there taking the opportunity that she was in Rome to film a Roman Holiday remake and explore Rome. To see it all and taste the foods. In that I truly liked her.

Philip, on the other hand, made me furious. Why didn't he just -UGH! I can't say cause I don't want to spoil it but he just rubbed me the wrong way.

There were parts in the last half of the book that could have been avoided. Like just say something and also the deceit was too much and went on too long. The very end. The very end was cute. but I still don't 100% support their relationship. I really wish she would have walked away and been like. 

"I'm a strong independent woman that takes no shit from nobody." 
And she'd sashayed away.

Other than one little personal tiff I had with Philip I loved everything about this book. The writing is fantastic, the characters where well written and different so I didn't get any of them mixed up (they had their own stuff happening outside of the main characters,  I loved that), and the romance is good. Plus, there's a princess in disguise and love at first sight.


Having read this book I can now tick off one book read in the Romanceopoly, Reading Women, and PopSugar Reading Challenges. As a part of my 2019 Reading Challenges.

Goodreads    ||    Amazon    ||    Barnes & Noble  

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The Bookish Island
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Stacking The Shelves - 3

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews where bloggers share what books they got throughout the week!

Reviewed:

This week I finished 3 books on the day I wrote the last Stacking The Shelves. I finished Santorini Sunset by Anita Hughes and wrote the review. I also read The New Guy (And Other Senior Year Distractions) by Amy Spalding. Review Pending! As well as Kindred Spirits by Rainbow Rowell

As For Update:

All The Bright Places has been going slow. I think I read like five or ten pages. With We Are Still Tornadoes by Michael Kun & Susan Mullen I've done 42 pages and I really like it so far.
I did try to start another of the books that I borrowed, A Week of Monday by Jessica Brody. And I'm 81 pages in so far and I'm liking it too. 

(Click on the covers to visit their individual goodreads)

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Santorini Sunsets by Anita Hughes | Book Review

Book Review:
Santorini Sunsets by Anita Hughes

Spoilers?

Yes!

Title - Santorini Sunsets By - Anita Hughes
Publication - August 2nd 2016 by St. Martin's Griffin
Format - Paperback, 304 pages
Genre - Chick Lit, Romance

The seventh intoxicating love story by Anita Hughes, set in beautiful Santorini, Greece. When a Hollywood superstar and a NYC society girl fall in love, sparks fly and secrets are revealed.
Brigit Palmer is thrilled to be on the Greek Island of Santorini. She's here for her wedding to Hollywood heart-throb Blake Crawford, one of America's most eligible bachelors. Brigit's parents have rented a villa, and soon guests will arrive from all over the world for the intimate ceremony.
Brigit is a New York socialite, and she's just given up her position at a Manhattan law firm to run her father's philanthropic foundation. Things are finally falling into place. Love, career, family. Everything is going so well...until she steps into the garden and sees her ex-husband Nathaniel hiding in the rose bushes. 
Nathaniel, a failed novelist, announces that Blake sold the rights to the wedding to HELLO! Magazine for two million dollars (donated to charity), and he is the reporter assigned to write the story. Everyone expects Brigit to have her happily ever after, including her mother who taught her how to lead the perfect lifestyle, her younger sister Daisy who impatiently wishes for her own love story, and of course, her fiancé. Things are supposed to work out for them. But when Brigit discovers an unsettling secret about Blake, she questions everything she's ever believed about love, and wonders if she's better off alone.
Told in Anita Hughes' spectacularly descriptive prose, SANTORINI SUNSETS is a story about family bonds, first loves, and the question of when to let go and when to hang on as tight as you can. 

The Rating :

My Review:

My review in a gif. Which equals 3 stars.
Okay. I feel like I have to give my reason for this gif. And its that there were some dramatic moments when I was just sitting there being like "I knew this was going to happen". So it makes sense.

via GIPHY

The Cover:
Although they say never judge a book by it's cover I believe the cover should represent what the book is going to be like or at least some aspect of it.
This cover is very pretty with the gradient in the background and the hills of Santorini but the model made it creepy. She looked like she was possessed or something. I don't know, I guess I would have preferred her to hut be standing there looking at the sunset instead of posing like she was at a high fashion photography session.


The Story:
I did not relate to this story many of the characters. Not one bit. 
Truthfully, I just thought that it was too pretentious. All the characters were rich or knew what it was like, or they were famous actors and that is unknown to me.So when in the story they would mention brand names, or other places I was reading and being totally clueless which made me hate the story. But of course I did like some things about this book.


Relationships:
This book had a bunch of relationships both in family and in couples.

Bridgit X Blake. 
I knew from the beginning that their relationship was either not going to end up in marriage or they were going to end up resenting each other or something similar. I could tell that they did like each other but in a surface kind or way.I mean, that they didn't really know each other. She only ever said when someone asked that he was a smart, handsome and charitable man. She never said that he liked certain things, or hated certain things. She probably didn't know if he was allergic to anything. And he didn't know anything about her either. For him he loved her because she was beautiful blond with blue eyes that was smart and belonged to the “New York Society”. Whatever that means. 

Brigit x Nathaniel
They knew each other since they were kinds, that alone makes them a better match than her and Blake. They shared history, they knew what the other liked or hated. And yes they did get married and then divorce but it was because they were too young when they got married. They needed to learn and grow up in order to understand the other. And they did and they still loved each other in the end.  

Daisy x Robbie
They were the only coupe I actually rooted for during the entire story. I wanted them to be together and be happy. Daisy is such an amazing person but she's too concerned with being an equal to Brigit, who was an attorney and about to marry an famous, handsome actor. She was talented and creative in many ways that made her and Robbie perfect for each other. He was a photographer and she was a pastry chef turned fashion designer.


Family Dynamics:
As for Bridgit and Daisie’s parents, Sydney and Francis
They had their issues which were the lack of communication. After years of marriage they forgot that if they didn't say the important things than the other might feel alienated or even not loved. And that is what happened to them. Not to mention the affair Sydney had and Francic always being at work, or traveling and him not telling her that they might lose the house they had in Summerhill. All of that created a time bomb but they talked and worked it out.


Settings:
This book was filled with descriptions of Santorini and other settings. Making it easy to picture the scenery and the flowers. It was beautifully described and it made me want to be there. See the flowers and the blue waters, the architecture and especially eat the food. 


Overall:
I enjoyed reading this book . The way it was written was beautiful. Full of descriptions of the settings and the people and it was a quick read for me. I think I would have finished it much sooner if it was not or the loads homework I had to do this past two weeks. The last 100 and a half pages I read in two sittings. I had made a rule of giving myself an hour to read whenever I wasn't doing anything and it helped a lot.  

The only thing I didn't like about this story was, like I mentioned earlier in this review, that I did not find myself feeling attached tote characters. I actually came to dislike them at times. Whenever they talked about money and clothes and they many houses they owned I just felt horrible. But I guess the whole point of this book is to be an easy beach read and to make you fantasize of being in these characters shoes. It's just that for me, personally,  it didn't do that. 

A to will I re-read this book again?
 Probably, probably not. I don't know I guess it depends on my mood or whether it's been a long time since I first read it. 

Will I read other books by Anita Hughes?
 Definitely. I loved her writing and the way she made the paces and the character come to life.

Get a copy at:
Barnes&Noble  |  Amazon US  | Book Depository Affiliate Link

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Stacking The Shelves - 2

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews where bloggers share what books they got throughout the week!

So this week I only got one book in the mail. I've also been busy wit exams and my blog, but I've managed to fit in some reading tie. I've started giving myself an hour just to read. Like, I actually use a timer and everything and it's been helping me a lot.

For Review:

This week I got a book from the lovely publishers over at St Martins Press. It is a Christmas book called Oliver, the Cat Who Saved Christmas by Sheila Norton. It is from the point of view of Oliver himself. I mean, if that doesn't sound cute then what does, right? Here are the links to the photo I took of the book on my instagram.

As for Update:

This week, much like last week is homework and studying for test, driven. But by giving myself an hour just to read I've managed to get a bit of reading done.
I have just the other night finished reading Santorini Sunset by Anita Hughes. Which was sent to me for review. I will definitely do a review of it in the near future.

I've also read a bit more of The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions) by Amy Spalding. I’m on page 154.
And also All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. With 70 pages.

Then as soon as I finished Santorini Sunset I decided to pick Kindred Spirit by Rainbow Rowell up and finished it an hour or so later. I will also review this in the future.  Because it was a short book and I managed to finished it in one sitting. I was quite proud of myself for finishing two books in one night. This is also one of those books my friend has lend me.

(Click on the covers to visit their individual goodreads)

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