Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story: A Novel

(Hardback)

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Varina Palladinos Jersey Italian Love Story is fun and funny, wonderfully exuberant, and incredibly wise.These endearing characterstheir voices and stories will be with me for a long time to come.I didnt want to say good-bye. Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Hieroglyphics

An utterly delightful and surprising family dramathink Moonstruck and My Big Fat Greek Wedding set in New Jerseyabout a boisterous, complicated Italian family determined to help their widowed mother find a new boyfriend.

Lively widow Varina Palladino has lived in the same house in Wyldale, New Jersey, her entire life. The town might be slightly stuck in the 1960s, when small businesses thrived and most residents were Italian, but its population is getting younger and the Palladinos are embracing the change. What Varinas not embracing, much to her ninety-two-year-old mothers dismay, is dating. Running Palladinos Italian Specialties grocery, caring for her mother, and keeping her large, loud Jersey Italian family from killing one another takes up all of Varinas energy anyway.

Sylvia Spini worries about her daughter Varina being left all alone when she dies. Sylvia knows what it is to be old and alone, so when her granddaughter, Donatella, comes to her with an ill-conceived plan to find Varina a man, Sylvia dives in. The three men of the familyDante, Tommy, and Paulieare each secretly plotting their own big life changes, which will throw everyone for a loop.

Three generations of Paladinos butt heads and break one anothers hearts as they wrestle with their own Jersey Italian love stories in this hilarious and life-affirming ode to love and family.

Reviews

Varina Palladinos Jersey Italian Love Story is fun and funny, wonderfully exuberant, and incredibly wise.These endearing characterstheir voices and stories will be with me for a long time to come.I didnt want to say good-bye. Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Hieroglyphics

Author Bio

Terri-Lynne DeFino was born and raised in New Jersey, but escaped to the wilds of Connecticut where she still lives with her husband, and her cats. If you knock on her door, she'll invite you in and feed you. That's what Jersey Italian women do, because you can take the girl out of Jersey, but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl. She is the author of the Bitterly Suite romance series published by Kensington Lyrical.