Flight Lessons FROM THE PUBLISHER
Though Anna once adored her aunt Rose, that ended when she betrayed Anna and her mother — Rose's terminally ill sister — and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years later, her own heart broken, Anna returns home to Rose, and to the family restaurant, the Bella Sorella, now grown shabby with age.Anna is still reluctant to forgive Rose, insisting that her stay is temporary. But the intimacy of working with Rose to put the Bella Sorella back on its feet, and an unexpected chance at true love, bring about a change of heart.
Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, reminding us that there's no place like home.
SYNOPSIS
E-Book Extra: Keeping Good Company: An Interview with Patricia Gaffney
Since her aunt Rose betrayed her, and her fatally ill mother, Anna has studiously avoided her Maryland hometown. But a fresh betrayal by a faithless lover lands Anna back in the family restaurant where she must save the business and face the past -- or risk losing true love.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Alone in a chilly loft in upstate New York, ruing the end of her affair with a two-timing sculptor, Anna Catalano, the heroine of this follow-up to Gaffney's bestselling The Saving Graces, can't resist an invitation to return home to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Her aunt Rose desperately needs a manager for her restaurant, the Bella Sorella, and it has to be family, says intermediary Aunt Iris. Rose and Anna haven't actually been on speaking terms since Anna caught Rose having an affair with Anna's father while her mother was dying. Still, telling herself it's only temporary, Anna signs on for the job. A host of clangorous, adrenaline-pumping kitchen scenes follow, and anyone who's worked in the restaurant business will especially enjoy the clash between the self-taught red-sauce chef and Anna's new hire, a culinary school grad who wants to put pesto in the minestrone. But Gaffney is unaccountably less apt in charting the romance between Anna and a bird-loving lawyer-turned-photographer named Mason Winograd, who must overcome his fear of flying as Anna overcomes her fear of nesting. Their e-mails, while blessedly free of emoticons and tech talk, are too long and too similar in voice. A delicious first kiss leads to a flat full monty: "He got her undressed and then went in the bathroom and came back nude, with condoms." In contrast, the affair between Rose and the dying Theo, Mason's stepfather, is richly nuanced, as are the relationships among the many women in the cast. (Aug. 1) Forecast: The beachfront jacket scene will attract August vacationers, but this comes out a bit too late in the summer to be a full-fledged beach book. Expect blockbuster sales anyway The Saving Graces has sold more than a million copies. 8-city author tour. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
After catching her boyfriend in bed with her boss, Anna Catalano decides to return to her childhood home. Ironically, an infidelity she witnessed between her aunt and her father 16 years earlier is exactly what drove her away in the first place. Once home, Anna begins the emotional metamorphosis from blame and alienation to forgiveness and acceptance. What results isn't exactly fast-paced, but readers will savor each well-written page and root for the sympathetic, authentic characters despite their flaws. Gaffney serves everything in double helpings: two acts of infidelity, two wounded heroes, two prodigal son stories. All of this is set against the microcosm of a small, family-owned Italian restaurant. Fans of Curtiss Ann Matlock's Driving Lessons, Kathleen Gilles Seidel's Till the Stars Fall, and Gaffney's other novels (e.g., The Saving Graces) will find this new work just as delectable. This is women's fiction at its finest, and public libraries of all sizes will want it for their collections. - Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
AudioFile
If you like the idea of navigating through life without a sextant or compass, you'll enjoy Patricia Gaffney's story of a middle-aged woman's search in all the wrong places to unravel the mystery of her fear of settling down. The writing is thoughtful and thought-provoking, and Laura Hicks is flawless in her performance of the lost, stuck Anna; the misleadingly sugary-sweet Aunt Rose; Rose's feisty dying lover, Theo; and the equally lost, wounded hero-in-progress, Mason. M.D.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
In her third hardcover outing, Gaffney struggles to tackle the unforgiving claims of family as an estranged young woman reluctantly moves back home. Not as masterfully plotted as her first (The Saving Graces, 1999), Gaffney's tale still ably details encounters between friends, relatives, and co-workers that help carry the story and mood. When 36-year-old Anna finds her lover in bed with another woman, she decides she has no choice but to accept her aunt Rose's invitation to help her run the family restaurant, Bella Sorella, on Maryland's eastern shore. Anna' s mother Lily died when she was a teenager, and she had once been especially close to Rose, her mother's sister, but in college she caught Rose and her father Paul in bed. Having suspected that they were lovers even when her mother was still alive, a hurt and angry Anna refused to accept Rose's explanations and spent the next decade or so in a series of failed relationships. Now back home, she declares she will stay only long enough to get the restaurant Rose owns back on its feet. As she assiduously avoids talking about the past, she begins making the improvements the restaurant needs, learns that Rose is in love with ailing Theo, a fisherman, and meets his stepson Mason, a former lawyer turned bird photographer. Although Mason's face and body are badly scarred, Anna finds herself attracted to him, but she can't let go of the past and isn't ready to trust him-or Rose. Mason also has secrets and anxieties-he suffers from panic attacks and hates flying, for instance-but this is a story that celebrates learning how to forget and to forgive. And so, while a creaky plot device (a fire) adds some tension, Anna finds herself ready to stayhome and stop running. Perceptive, though insights aren't enough to help the thin plot rise very far. Author tour
Art & Photography
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