Synopsis:
While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food...and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her "vacation flirtation." But just because summer is over doesn't mean Lucy and Jesse are over, too.
In this coming-of-age romance, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.
Jane Eyre
My current favorite is Downton Abbey. Old favorites: Gilmore Girls and Northern Exposure.
A Room With A View, the 1985 version with Helena Bonham Carter.
Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road.
Stars Hollow, Connecticut; Cicily, Alaska; and Downton Abbey.
Henry Tilney from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. He’s kind, funny, and forgiving.
“What you seek is seeking you.” The poet Rumi said it, and I hope it’s true.
So many things! Bruce Springsteen is number one. Some others: The Fault in Our Stars; Gilmore Girls; musicians Butch Walker, Jesse Malin, and Ryan Adams; novelists Francine Prose, Meg Wolitzer, Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters; anything having to do with Downton Abbey….and the list goes on and on.
Emily Bronte.
Thank you for loving books! Spread the word: books are the closest thing we have to real magic.
Hello April! We are super excited to have you in our FFBC tours.
Lucy’s a budding actress whose Dad pressures her to study something practical in college. When she agrees to major in business, he rewards her with the backpacking trip of a lifetime in Europe. Lucy falls in love with Italy and with Jesse Palladino, an American street musician/wanderer—but leaving behind Jesse and her acting dreams proves harder than Lucy expects.
Lucy’s full of love and enthusiasm for all she encounters on her travels, with emotions that live very close to the surface. Jesse’s a free spirit who believes in living out his dreams, and who genuinely wants Lucy to be happy.
Love, Lucy has two inspirations: it’s a retelling of E. M. Forster’s amazing novel A Room With a View. But it’s also informed by my own long-ago European backpacking adventures.
“Though later she would think she should have seen it coming, she didn’t. Jesse’s arms circled her, tightened around her, and drew her in, and a moment later he was kissing her, his lips soft and warm and searching. This wasn’t Lucy’s first kiss—there had been a few others—but it might as well have been. In a way—in the only way that counted—it was the first.”
When Lucy and Jesse are running around Florence and Rome—riding a Vespa, getting onstage at an underground nightclub, pretending to be Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck on the Spanish Steps…basically any and all of the scenes in Italy were the most fun to write.
Begin your time in Florence by wandering through the city in the general direction of the Duomo, the city’s central cathedral. You’ll see its massive and magnificent red roof rising from almost every spot in the city. Climb the 463 steps to its rooftop for a glorious view of the city. And when you’re back down on terra firma, head straight to Gelateria Grom and reward yourself. Actually, any gelato would be good, but Grom’s dark chocolate is to die for.
Here’s a website on the Duomo: http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/tuscanyarts/how-many-steps-florence-brunelleschi-duomo/
And here’s one for Gelateria Grom!: http://www.grom.it/
I’m not sure I can pick one song, but I’ve made a whole playlist of them. You can find it here.
We would need a time machine! Jesse would be played by Milo Ventimiglia in his Gilmore Girl days. And Lucy would be played by Helena Bonham Carter circa 1985, in her A Room With a View days.
To get into the Love, Lucy vibe, watch Roman Holiday and A Room With a View. Snacks you should have on hand: a cappuccino—even if the Italians don’t believe in drinking it after breakfast—and a cannoli.
I’ve been working on a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion set on a prep school class trip to Athens and the Greek islands.
Thank you so much for everything, April!
You’re very welcome! This has been a blast.
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April Lindner is the author of three novels: Catherine, a modernization of Wuthering Heights; Jane, an update of Jane Eyre; and Love, Lucy, due out in January, 2015. She also has published two poetry collections, Skin and This Bed Our Bodies Shaped. She plays acoustic guitar badly, sees more rock concerts than she’d care to admit, travels whenever she can, cooks Italian food, and lavishes attention on her pets—two Labrador retriever mixes and two excitable guinea pigs. A professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University, April lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two sons.
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