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Book Details:
Book Title: It Happened in Tuscany by Gail
Mencini
Category: Adult Fiction (18+), 408 pages
Genre:
Mainstream Fiction, Historical Fiction
Publisher: Capriole Group
Release date: Feb 18 2020
Content Rating: PG-13.
The novel includes violence in war scenes and non-explicit sex scenes, but
not f-words, religious profanities, or crude terms as described.
Book Description:
From the multiple-award-winning author of To Tuscany with Love comes a
captivating story of the epic tug of war between honor and duty, the
irrepressible power of love, and the concept of family.
In 1945,
Will Mills and his fellow soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division scaled
Italy’s treacherous Riva Ridge in the frigid night to break through the
nearly impenetrable German line of defense. Severely wounded, Will was
rescued by Italian partisans and one, a beautiful girl, tended his injuries
until he had the strength to rejoin the U.S. troops.
Tormented
and haunted by his decisions and actions during wartime, Will knows he has
unfinished missions in Italy to complete. The passage of time and years of
carrying this unfulfilled need have molded Will into a bitter, angry man.
Seventy-five years later, Will’s spunky thirty-two-year-old
neighbor, Sophie Sparke, faces disaster in her life. Everything is going
wrong—her job, her love life, even her dog. Part of the problem is that
confident and fiercely independent Sophie lets her quick mouth get her into
trouble.
Grouchy, mean-spirited Will finagles Sophie into
traveling with him to Tuscany to find the partisan who saved his life. Will
also secretly hopes to confront the demons his wartime actions created.
Sophie and Will comb enchanting Tuscan hill towns on an improbable and
unfolding mission with few clues to aid them. Will’s passionate tenacity
drives their quest and in the process exposes their darkest secrets. The
journey alters the course of their lives, and Will and Sophie find more than
they had imagined in the hills of Tuscany.
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Guest Post
What’s in a Name?
Have you ever wondered about how authors name their characters?
It’s one of my favorite parts of building a novel. Here are my personal guidelines:
Keep a list of first and last names for each character, along with their role: protagonist, antagonist, love interest of protagonist, nosy neighbor, father of protagonist, etc.
Don’t reuse letters unless they are family members. For example, I wouldn’t have two characters with a first or last name starting with the letter “F” unless they were relatives. Suzy Fast and Harry Fast, brother and sister are OK, but unrelated characters named Suzy Fast and Frank Burton is not OK in my novels. I want to make it as easy as possible for my readers to keep everyone straight.
Choose primary characters’ names because it reflects something about a character’s heritage, the way the character looks, or acts. I selected Bella Rossini for the name of the protagonist in To Tuscany with Love because bella means beautiful in Italian and Rossini is an Italian surname, which speaks to her heritage. Rune in To Tuscany with Love named himself. I thought about what his character would be like, and his line in the book popped into my head: “I’m Rune. If you give me a chance, I’ll ruin you this summer.”
Selectively use alliterations in names if it makes sense for the character. Sophie Sparke, in It Happened in Tuscany, is not only an alliteration, but Sparke speaks to her personality and her father’s heritage while Sophie reflects her mother’s.
I imagine my characters’ personalities and roles in the story as I name them. The descriptions I build for each character start during this naming process. I love getting to know the people in my novels, as once I give them a name, they are real to me.
Thank you for joining my blog tour and for letting me share my thoughts with your readers!
You can learn more about my novels and characters at: www.gailmencini.com, and about me on Facebook: @GailMencini.Author or Instagram: @gailmencini.
Meet the Author:
Gail Mencini is the acclaimed author of It Happened in Tuscany and To
Tuscany with Love, both of which are Denver Post #1 bestsellers and award
winners. Gail grew up in DeWitt, Nebraska, graduated from Wartburg College
with a BA in Accounting and Economics, and earned a master of taxation
degree from the University of Denver. A frequent visitor to Tuscany and a
homegrown gourmet cook, Gail has toured Italy by car, train, bus, Vespa, and
foot. She lives in Colorado with her husband.
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