returning to Florence, Italy, with April Lindner's LOVE, LUCY

Today, with her vivid reimagining of EM Forster's A Room With a View in a YA novel she titled Love, Lucy, April Lindner has returned me to that city of art—Florence, Italy. She has given me Lucy, torn between two cities and two boys, a father's demands and her own instincts. She has taken me to Fiesole, a village outside Florence where I traveled many years ago—a town that, in fact, became the setting of my favorite published short story.

It's all so clear, in April's book. I see the streets as if I am walking them, the red-tiled roofs as if I am up above them, that Arno as if I am Vespa-ing by.

And that first photo in this post, right down to the red bike, is a picture I took in back in September 2012, when I was researching my own Florence novel, One Thing Stolen. That precise scene and angle, right down to the the red bike, is pictured on the back of April's novel.

We wrote our Italy novels at the same time. Worried them through together. Gave each other the support novelists need. Indulged in all flavors of gelato.

And so, April, it was a pleasure this afternoon to read your story, to find your gelato, your streets, your romance, and, of course, your music, in the pages of Love, Lucy. Congratulations on another wonderful reimagining.