I’d just taken a college Italian class, and my professor had offered a safe crash pad for the first few days of my trip-in Luckily, my journey began with training wheels. Like Lucy, I spoke only a little bit of Italian, just barely enough to get by, and I wasn’t particularly good at I was a bit older than Lucy-22, and just out ofĬollege-but when I arrived in Milan, Italy with a Eurail pass, a copy of Let’s Go: Europe, and a seventy-pound backpack I could barely lift, I was a wee bit terrified. (One of 7,000 books recommended on Lucy Sommersworth, the heroine of Love, Lucy, my parents gave me the gift of a lifetime: a backpacking trip to Europe. Why hang out with college boys when she can’t stop thinking about Jesse? How can she reconcile her father’s demands with her love for performing? Spying a poster for theater tryouts puts some pep in Lucy’s step – why can’t a business major be in a play? So it’s a tearful goodbye at the train station, a sad flight back to dad’s alma mater. However, her troubadour intends to continue traveling abroad, playing his guitar, not returning to his family in New Jersey any time soon.

When Lucy meets Jesse in Italy, she delights in the beauty of Florence, the shimmer of Tuscan sunlight, the warmth of his kisses. Her ever-practical father reluctantly allows Lucy to backpack through Europe with Charlene after high school graduation, in trade for Lucy majoring in business (which she hates). My book talk: Giving up her dream of being an actress is hard for Lucy, but giving up the young man she loves so her dad will pay for college is heartbreaking – must she really choose? Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher. Forster’s classic A Room With a View comes from the author of Catherine (based on Wuthering Heights – my review here) and Jane ( Jane Eyre).Ĭould you give up true love for family demands?īook info: Love, Lucy / April Lindner. Read the first 2 chapters on the publisher’s website free here as you listen to the author’s Love, Lucy playlist, and you’ll be whisked away to Florence with Lucy, love just around the corner. And then Lucy must give up her theater dreams to become a business major, or her father won’t pay for college at all! Hard choices…and Jesse back in Italy so hard to get in touch with.

Love lucy by april lindner