The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti

January 10, 2022
Probst’s engaging if sometimes clunky latest (after Our Italian Summer) follows three American sisters as they visit Positano, Italy, to find answers to mysteries unearthed following their mother’s death. Former ballerina Pris gave up her career for love but has grown apart from her busy lawyer husband, Garrett. Her younger sister Dev, a workaholic NYU professor, judges their youngest sister, Bailey, for hooking up with guys and never committing. After their mother, Olivia, dies, the siblings find love letters to and from “R” stashed among Olivia’s things, along with a deed to a cottage she owned in Italy. The women also discover Olivia planned to meet R again on her 65th birthday, which would have been a few months away. So they travel to Italy and stay in the cottage, hoping to find R. There, handsome neighbor Hawke catches Dev’s eye and Bailey hits on him, reviving an old feud between the sisters over an ex-boyfriend of Dev’s. Moretti’s depiction of sibling affection and tension is on point, and the plot involving Olivia’s secrets has some momentum, but the prose is often lackluster (a pair of eyes are described as “Listerine blue of the sea”). Awkward phrasing aside, this diverting story should still hold readers in its sway. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary.

January 1, 2022
Hidden love and a rediscovered sisterhood await readers in Probst's latest (after Our Italian Summer, 2021). Priscilla and her younger sisters, Devon and Bailey, were too late to say goodbye to their mother, Olivia, when she passed suddenly. Devastated at the loss, the sisters reunite to go through their mother's estate and get it ready for sale. The long-simmering strain between the sisters makes the task difficult and daunting. When the sisters discover a hidden trunk of their mother's full of old love letters from a mysterious "R" and a deed to a house in Italy, the tension is pushed aside as the women realize that they may have never truly known their mother at all. All three decide to go to the Italian countryside to see the house and find the mystery man, but what they end up discovering are sides to themselves they never knew before. Probst once again proves her talent at writing female relationships that will resonate with readers of contemporary women's fiction.

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