Escape to Florence (US) / Escape to Tuscany (UK)
In Escape to Florence, Kat Devereaux has created an ambitious, moving novel that toggles between German-occupied Italy in 1944 and Italy in 2019. In one era, teenage Stella daringly works undercover for the Resistance; in the other, floundering, thirty-something Tori leaves her unpleasant Scottish husband for a new life and love in Florence. Will these two stories ever connect? At first, they seem totally separate. Suspense propels both plots, producing a mystery novel as well as vivid portraits of Stella, Tori, her angry estranged husband, her psycho-babbling sister, and two hunky Italian men.
This is not Eat, Pray, Love, although it unfolds under the Tuscan sun and will charm any lover of Italy and particularly of Florence. There isn’t a lot of food. It’s more “Research, Write, Love,” since Tori is a writer. (The love explored is fraternal as well as romantic.) Suddenly unmoored from her home, marriage, and book in progress, which fizzles, Tori faces many questions. What should she do with her life? Why did her late grandmother love Florence? What has Formula 1 racing to do with this? Where—and who—is Stella? After delving deep into her own past as well as Italian culture and history, Tori finds answers.
Perhaps there are too many writer novels already, but Devereaux manages the challenge well, giving an excellent sense of the labor (and thrill) of research and the struggles of composition. Her picture of Italy includes the broiling sun and maddening bureaucracy as well as the ineffable magic. The sequences set in war-torn Tuscany are probably the strongest in the book, highlighting the important role women played in the Resistance.
Altogether, Escape to Florence is an excellent way to go there… except perhaps to stage an escape yourself.
