Aged for Murder

Finished October 18

Aged for Murder by Fiona Grace

This is the first in a series of cosy mysteries set in Tuscany, Italy, but the novel starts out in Chicago. Olivia Glass works as an advertising executive and has lately been working on branding for a large wine company called Valley Wines and the clients love her work. The problem is that Olivia doesn't love the product, and she's found that she really wants to put her efforts into smaller enterprises. She is meeting her boyfriend Matt for dinner and has decided to tell him how she feels about her work. 

At the dinner, Olivia does tell him how she feels about the Valley Wine account and her work, but unexpectedly Matt breaks up with her. Olivia shows herself to be a confident and intelligent woman as she delves into his reasons for leaving her, and she had the admiration of several other diners at the way she handled it as well. 

She decides to go to her assistant's apartment to give Matt time to clear his stuff out of hers by the deadline she gave him, and the two enjoy the wine she brought from the restaurant, and she ended up sharing her dream of owning a vineyard in Italy herself someday. The next morning she scans her feeds and sees her oldest friend Charlotte has rented a villa in Italy for the summer, after having cancelled her upcoming wedding. When Olivia gets to the office, and finds out she will be promoted and in charge of several accounts under the same parent company as Valley Wine, she finds herself quitting on the spot, and telling Charlotte that she's going to accept her invitation to join her in Italy. 

The majority of the novel takes place in Tuscany, in and near the villa that Charlotte is renting. Olivia finds herself taking a job at a nearby family-owned winery and beginning to learn about the wine-making process. But when one of the winery's staff members is murdered, she finds herself a suspect, so determines to figure out who the killer is herself.

I liked the strong female character, who found ways to deal with the setbacks she faced, and to support her friend when that became necessary. The details about the wine industry were interesting, and the goat only added to the charm. There's even a slight hint of future romance. 

A winner. 

The Reluctant Tuscan

Finished July 12
The Reluctant Tuscan: How I Discovered My Inner Italian by Phil Doran

There were aspects of Doran's experience that I quite liked, such as his efforts to learn the language, and aspects that I didn't like, such as how the local people were often caricatures of various Italian stereotypes and his humour, which is in the style of the sitcoms that he wrote for as a career.
At the beginning of the book there is a disclaimer that all the events are true, but some of the place names and all of the people's names have been changed to ensure their privacy. This is good, but given some of the people's secrets, if you know Phil and his wife and where they actually have a home in Tuscany, I would think that some of these secrets might still become associated with the actual people, which is worrying given the promises made to those people.
There is the usual issue of Italian bureaucracy and the machinations used to sidestep and overcome it. Having never dealt with this, I couldn't say if these are real or exaggerated, but certainly at times it feels a bit much.
This memoir covers a year or so during which Doran's wife, a sculptor and lover of Italy, buys a ruined house with many issues and sets about making it into a home. One of her motivations is worry about the stress Doran has over getting his scripts accepted now that he is no longer on salary to a particular show or studio. She believes getting him away from California will help his health. Given the stress around this project, I'm not sure how successful this ploy was, but he did get a book out of it anyway.
Despite the stereotypes, one did get glimpses of the real humanity in the people he encountered, and some of them were more interesting to me, and I would like to know more about them, such as the young female mechanic.