Review
"Full-bodied as a rich Italian red, it's a page-turner combining the missed chances of Captain Corelli's Mandolin with the foodie pleasures of Chocolat. A warming read for a winter's night." EVE magazine, Feb 05 "Pellegrino takes us from 1960s Italy and Liverpool to 21st-century London, as Maria's story becomes Chiara's against a backdrop of family ties, food and secrets." GOOD BOOK GUIDE, 1 Feb "If you like your stories on the sensuous side, this debut novel is for you." GLAMOUR, February 05 "Pellegrino's twin themes of food and love combine to make this Maeve Binchy-style book a good holiday read." WESTERN DAILY PRESS, 29 Jan "A tale of love, families, their foibles -- and food." WOMAN, 14 Feb
Product Description
Italy, 1964. Maria Domenica is the eldest daughter of Pepina and Erminio Carrozza, a farming family from the tiny southern village of San Giulio. At sixteen, Maria's life is limited to the confines of her mother's rural kitchen - where she bakes bread every morning, the way the Carrozza women always have - and the Caffe Angeli, a place of friendship, strong espresso and famous ricotta sfolgliatelle. Her parents have high hopes for their beautiful first-born, but she has other plans. Maria runs away to Rome but, one year later, she returns to San Giulio in disgrace - eight months pregnant with the identity of the father a mystery. Hastily, shamefully, she is married off to a neighbour's son. But she soon escapes again, this time to England, where she searches once more for a new life for herself and her daughter, Chiara. Many years later, it is Chiara, not Maria, who finds herself drawn back to San Giulio - to the dusty little piazza, to the enticing aromas of the Caffe Angeli and to her long-lost family. But she soon discovers that the simple Italian life she seeks is not as simple as it seems - particularly where the past is concerned. DELICIOUS is an irresistible saga - written with all the freshness and warmth of a Carrozza family recipe - about the enduring love affair between Italy and England, about three very different generations of Italian women, and an old kitchen in Campania that binds them all together.
