Book review: Antonia and Her Daughters

ANTONIA and Her Daughters is chick lit with guts and heart. Because it is a tale from Italy, it also has equal measures of romance and fire.

WOMEN'S search for self, solitude and serenity has taken down forests of trees and still there is room for fresh perspectives and stories.

Antonia and Her Daughters is chick lit with guts and heart. Because it is a tale from Italy, it also has equal measures of romance and fire.

Although officially fiction, it is a kind of  "as told to'' story.

Author Marlena de Blasi is part of the tale and the voice that relays Italian matriarch Antonia's extraordinary life story.

The author and her subject have a very difficult start. Marlena has come to town to write a book and Antonia does not want her there.

But a difficult friendship develops and it is through tense and sometimes warm times spent together that Antonia slowly reveals the family's story.

Antonia heads a family of four generations of headstrong, beautiful women.

The events and personalities make the story interesting and real. The edges have not been softened, nor the hard lessons of life censored, so the story features difficult exchanges and incidents that shock, hurt and move the reader.

Set in Tuscany, the revelations about Italian culture are fresh, but also strangely relatable for Australian readers.

The author has written several bestsellers already and all are set in Italy, where she now lives.

Beautifully woven on a textured background of food and fashion, chores and hobbies, the story is engaging, compelling and moving.

Antonia and Her Daughters
Marlena de Blasi
Allen & Unwin, $32.99