Customer Reviews

Taking Tuscany: A Novel

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The author did a splendid job of continuing AJ's story in Taking Tuscany. AJ has aged almost four years since Saving Sailor, growing from a child to a young adult. Renee Riva has done an excellent job creating a fresh, endearing story that held my attention until the end. It's one of those stories that you almost feel a part of... or at least WISH you were a part of.... The book is warm, funny and well-written and will cause the reader to pause and consider what values are most important in ones' life.

Review by Jill Williamson

A few years have gone by since Saving Sailor. A few tortuous years where poor A.J. Degulio has been forced to live in Tuscany, a half a world away from her beloved dog, Sailor, her friend Danny, and the beauty of Indian Island, Idaho. Sigh! Sure, one might think that living in Italy would be wonderful. Not A.J. In Italy, she is a blond, Yankee Barbie doll, the punch line of every joke at school. To make matters worse, her family is crazy, as usual.

Love, love, love Renée Riva. It's rare that a book makes me laugh out loud. During this one, my husband kept shooting me weird looks, wondering if I was loosing my mind. Nope. Just reading Taking Tuscany and loving it! The whole time I'm reading it, I'm dying that I don't have Heading Home waiting on my bedside table. Ug! Renée, please don't make us wait too long for book three. I need to read the real-life-fiction version of Moon over Milan.

A wonderful follow-up to Saving Sailor. Readers will love A.J.'s charm, sense of humor and quirky family. You will be left wishing for an Italian vacation and looking forward to Heading Home.

A.J.'s fresh voice reminds us of what really matters in life as she negotiates
a foreign culture, the pitfalls of friendship, and family life with humor and insight. A laugh aloud good read.

Ten-year-old A.J. Degulio burst onto the scene in Renee Riva's first novel, Saving Sailor, with a voice reminiscent of Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird. Her quirky sense of humor, crazy Italian family, and animal loving ways quickly earned her a place alongside the best of literature's coming-of-age characters. But as kids grow older, their voices change, and I wondered if our friend A.J. would retain her innocence and wit in Taking Tuscany. No worries. The girl we came to love is still here. She's just a little older and maybe a tad wiser, but she's still A.J. Now thirteen and living with her family in Italy, she's ditched her fake southern accent but still feels like a misfit. It doesn't help that she's the only blonde haired, fair skinned Italian in her family, is more comfortable with animals than kids her own age, and her only friend has become a nun.

If there's a theme to Riva's novels, it's straight from her own life: La famiglia e tutto, family is everything. We see it in Taking Tuscany, just like we did in Saving Sailor. Sure, the Degulios are quirkier than most families. Mom Sophia gets a kick out of pretending she's Sophia Loren, complete with giving out autographs. Grandma Juliani's starting to lose her marbles. Aunt Genevieve and Uncle Nick have painted their villa blue. But through it all the Degulios never lose their love for each other, challenged as it is at times.

There's something incredibly refreshing about Riva's tales of a more innocent time (in this case 1972 Italy), where the biggest challenges at school are an enemy sticking gum in your hair, or deciding whether to let a cute boy walk you home. But no matter what A.J. faces, she knows she will always have her family. And Danny and Sailor. She keeps in touch with her childhood crush and beloved dog still living in Idaho via letter writing, and throughout Taking Tuscany we watch Danny and A.J.'s friendship flourish through pen and ink. A.J. still longs to return to what she'll always call home, but at least Danny's photos and kind words sustain her.

Renee Riva may be an as yet undiscovered gem in Christian fiction, but she won't be for long if she continues to write books like Taking Tuscany. Proficiently mixing deeper themes and spiritual truths alongside the humor, Riva has crafted a lovely tale of longing and belonging readers of all ages will savor.

--Reviewed by C.J. Darlington for TitleTrakk

Renee Riva creates moving multi-dimensional images of everyday people who are at their worst uproariously funny, and at their best, transcendent. In a beautifully textured setting, Riva weaves them into a jubilant coming-of-age tale about the true meaning of family. A celebration of the ordinary that will leave you breathless with laughter and tears.

Three years have gone by since the Degulio family moved to their old crumbling castle in Tuscany. A.J. had to leave her dog, Sailor, behind along with her best friend, Danny. It's not an easy task for A.J. to make new friends at school, especially because she's the only blonde, freckled-faced, fair-skinned girl there. She describes it much better. "As if I didn't stand out enough already. In cookie terms it's like being a vanilla wafer in a box of chocolate biscotti."pg.15 Annalisa Tartini is the "Queen Bee" at A.J's new school and gave her the nickname, Yankee. Every day she tries to avoid the queen bee and her followers, but they always seem to run into each other, which calls for some kind of trouble.

When A.J. becomes friends with a nun named Sister Aggie, she confides in her and explains how unhappy she is because she was forced to move half way around the world with her family. Sister Aggie tells her to read a certain book that really makes her think and begin to appreciate her life and family a little more. With those accident prone Degulio kids, another one of them gets hurt and A.J's appreciation grows stronger for her family. She sees just how precious they are, even though they're embarrassing, family is everything.

This has easily become another one of my favorites. Renée has a beautiful way of writing stories that bring out different emotions as you read and she adds a great moral to them. Taking Tuscany had me laughing and I even cried a little. Even though A.J. is 3 years older in this story, she is still the same funny character I couldn't get enough of in Saving Sailor. Another thing I really liked is that this is a clean story, so you won't come across anything inappropriate being said. I don't think there's a certain age group this book is geared toward. Even if there was, anyone can enjoy it.

This book was provided for review by David C. Cook. I was not required to write a positive review.

I enjoyed this novel very much and when emailing the author found that a lot of it is based on what had happened in her life. It's very wholesome and good for anyone young at heart.