ROMAN CRAZY (The Broads Abroad #1) by ALICE CLAYTON & NINA BOCCI :: REVIEW & EXCERPT

“What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling to the blood fly to my cheeks.
“Nothing….everything.”

What a wonderful story of second chance love, friendships and self-discovery. Swoony, passionate and light on drama, this is the book to lose yourself in if you’re looking for a sweet romantic escape. And we do mean an escape, because we feel as though we experienced a day or so in Rome without having to leave our lounge room, such was the vividly beautiful atmospheric telling of this story!

“It wasn’t love or lust, but something we both recognized as a possibility of something.”

Avery Bardot was only twenty one with stars in her eyes, a zest for life and wanderlust in her blood when she travelled to Barcelona for work. It was there she met Marcello Bianchi, a man she loved but left behind when she returned to Boston. Real life got in the way; hopes, dreams and love withered. Nine years later, she comes face to face with the man who evoked such passion in her.

“You didn’t end it. An ending has a finale. Come si dice, a resolution. You disappeared.”

After catching her husband banging his secretary Avery makes the decision to visit her friend Daisy, an architect currently living in Rome. Avery needs time for herself and to find the old Avery…what better place than Rome…what better place indeed and as fate would have it, Avery is reacquainted with Marcello, the man she never stopped thinking about and who always held a place in her heart.

‘We knew from the beginning that we were on borrowed time, but for those four months I was the real me. He let me fly.’

Whilst we loved the second chance romance aspect of this story, this story became more than a romance as we journeyed with Avery on her quest to find herself, re-establish her friendship with Daisy and become immersed in the vividly beautiful detail of their surroundings. All this captured our imagination. It was as though Rome almost became a character in the story, feeling present with Daisy and Avery, sitting in a restaurant at Campo de Fiori enjoying one of those wickedly decadent cornetto alla crema’s and cappuccino, savouring a gelato or a glass of wine whilst witnessing the sights, soaking in the energy and falling as deeply in love with Rome as Avery did.

‘There wasn’t a textbook available that could put into words what this city looked like to virgin eyes.’

This is a collaboration that worked very well.  Alice Clayton and Nina Bocci exquisitely captured the surroundings of Rome, awakening all our senses to the beauty, history, art and atmosphere as though we were there. Not only that, we felt the authors contagious effervescent and gregarious personalities shine through in Daisy and Avery. Daisy was a hoot! Every girl should have a Daisy in their lives!

So kick back and prepare to have your heart touched, your funny bone tickled and your wanderlust fuelled as these ladies deliver a sweet and entertaining romance, this quote summing it up for us.

‘I thought about second chances. I guess looking in it’d seem that the second chance here was clearly a second chance at love, with Marcello. But maybe it was getting a second chance at life, with myself, for myself, doing something that I loved.’