“You know, people come to Italy for all sorts of reasons, but when they stay, it’s for the same two things”

“What?”

“Love and gelato”

“Love & Gelato” is a romance fiction book that follows Lina, a sixteen years old American girl from Seattle in her undesired journey to Tuscany. Despite not being happy about it, she is going to spend the summer in Florence, a place where she knows no one and doesn’t speak the language. The only reason Lina is actually taking this trip is to fulfill her mother’s last wish of finally meeting the young girl’s father. But, what kind of father can this man be if he never showed up for her after all this time? Lina is just about to find out.

As soon as she arrives in Italy, Lina is determined to find her way back home after discovering her father Howard lives in a cemetery of American soldiers killed during World War II, working at the memorial. But cemeteries were a place the poor girl couldn’t stand at all since her mother’s quick passing away from a devastating, incurable cancer. Could she survive a summer living in that place?

But everything is about to change when Lina is given one of her mom’s old journals from the time she spent in Italy. She hesitates to start reading it after having thrown away several other journals her mother used to keep. “I made the wrong choice”, Lina reads right out from the first page.

Throughout those pages, which Lina dives deep into, she sees herself completely involved in secret romance surrounded by art, hidden bakeries, and a tough decision. Lina uncovers a new, magical world that inspires her to follow in her mom’s footsteps around the prettiest places in Tuscany alongside the cute Italian boy she just met, Ren. What Lina could never expect though, was to uncover a family secret capable of changing everything the girl ever knew about her mom, her father, and even herself.

Jenna Evans Welch is a New York Times best-selling author based in South Lake City also responsible for writing “Love & Luck”, “Love & Olives”, and “Love and Collection”, a compilation of her three books. She spent part of her adolescent years in Florence, riding scooters, dancing on water fountains, and having more gelato than she should. As a child, she was an insatiable reader who grew up to become a writer.

“Love & Gelato” is the type of book that takes you far away – in this case, to Florence – and makes you travel with captivating characters along with their stories in a manner that makes all its 390 pages fly by. A quick, light, sweet, adventurous, and mysterious love story portrayed in a dreamy Italian background. Totally worth reading when you need something to simply relax and enjoy.

Published by HOLR Magazine.