From Publishers Weekly
Roberts exhibits a jaunty sense of the absurd in her winking 12th novel, which follows the capers of Aurora, a suspiciously thrice-widowed Brit who takes a holiday in Padenza, Italy, following the death of her third husband. At the invitation of her best friend Leonora, an irreverent feminist abbess, Aurora settles in at a Padenza convent. Roberts (Booker-shortlisted for Daughters of the House) humorously guns for the Catholic Church-Aurora's nunnery getaway turns out to be anything but chaste. She embarks on a steamy affair with Father Michael, who may not be what he seems (a priest), and enjoys a flirtatious friendship with the local museum director Frederico Pagan, also not exactly who Aurora thinks he is (gay). The twisting, turning plot-involving drug smuggling, museum theft, and Aurora's late mother's gun-plus Aurora's Emma Bovary-esque tendency to live her life through lessons plucked from fiction, make for more sophisticated reading than a summary suggests. Though overly reliant on shock tactics and exaggerated psychological abnormality, Roberts provides a puzzle-like pleasure in story and character, and a memorable, if sensationalized main character whose attempts to define herself through men have left her dangerously empty and disappointed.
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To say that Aurora has been unlucky in love is an understatement. Husbands one, two, and three all met untimely deaths, but now Aurora is ready to move on with her life. A trip to the Italian countryside, ostensibly to scout out new tempting tidbits for her London delicatessen and visit with her old friend, the feisty feminist turned convent abbess Leonora, seems just the ticket, and would have been, had not Aurora's domineering stepmother, Maude, arrived along with her parish priest, the oh-so-attractive and oh-so-mysterious Father Michael. Unable to stay at the convent for more than one night, Aurora is offered lodging in the museum apartment owned by another old friend, Frederico, a man whose sexual orientation Aurora has evidently mistaken. As Aurora succumbs to her passion for the erstwhile priest, Frederico expresses more than just friendship for the vulnerable Aurora. Roberts whimsically indulges her passion for favored themes of religion, sex, and food in this riotous and ribald tale that packs a didn't-see-that-one-coming ending.
Carol HaggasCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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