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Very Valentine LP (Valentine, 1) Paperback – Large Print, February 4, 2009
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New York Times Bestseller
Reading List Selection by American Library Association
Lifetime original movie, starring Jacqueline Bissett and Kelen Coleman
“Sex and the City meets Moonstruck…this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.” — People
Poignant, funny, warm, and red hot, Very Valentine is a wonderful treat for Adriana Trigiani fans—a “delightful” (Boston Globe), “romance-soaked novel” (Marie Claire) from much adored playwright, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and New York Times bestselling author of Lucia, Lucia; Rococo; and Big Stone Gap. The adventures of an extraordinary and unforgettable woman as she attempts to rescue her family’s struggling shoe business and find love at the same time, Very Valentine sweeps the reader from the streets of Manhattan to the picturesque hills of la bella Italia. Already a national bestseller, here is a valentine from the incomparable Trigiani that you can take into your heart.
- Print length562 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateFebruary 4, 2009
- Dimensions8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
- ISBN-100061668990
- ISBN-13978-0061668999
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“ Sex and the City meets Moonstruck … this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.” — People, Lead Review
May be [Triginai’s] best work to date… Delightful, energetic… Trigiani is a seemingly effortless storyteller.” — Boston Globe
“Well-crafted work with sometime lyrical, sometimes flat-out-funny writing.” — Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Trigiani has certainly not lost her ability to breathe life into everything she writes.” — Roanoke Times
“Adriana Trigiani listens to her readers, then gives them what they want. That’s why they’ll be ecstatic about her newest novel…” — Richmond Times-Dispatch
“No one ever reads just one of Trigiani’s wonderfully quirky tales. Once you pick up the first, you are hooked..... Trigiani fills her pages with snappy dialogue and luscious descriptions.... Reading Very Valentine is like tucking into a plate of homemade manicotti: irresistible and delicious.” — BookPage
“Load up on cappuccino and biscotti before getting lost in the super froth of Adriana Trigiani’s romance-soaked novel, Very Valentine” — Marie Claire
“[Very Valentine] will have readers who love romantic novels...swooning. Trigiani’s closing is satisfying, even as it paves the way for the lovable heroine to reappear in a planned sequel.” — Booklist
“This genteel and lush tale of soles and souls has loads of charm and will leave readers eager for the sequel.” — Publishers Weekly
“Trigiani offers plenty of reasons to stick around for part two.” — Kirkus Reviews
From the Back Cover
Meet the Roncalli and Angelini families, a vibrant cast of colorful characters who navigate tricky family dynamics with hilarity and brio, from magical Manhattan to the picturesque hills of bella Italia. Very Valentine is the first novel in a trilogy and is sure to be the new favorite of Trigiani's millions of fans around the world.
In this luscious, contemporary family saga, the Angelini Shoe Company, makers of exquisite wedding shoes since 1903, is one of the last family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village. The company is on the verge of financial collapse. It falls to thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli, the talented and determined apprentice to her grandmother, the master artisan Teodora Angelini, to bring the family's old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century and save the company from ruin.
While juggling a budding romance with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge presented by a prestigious department store, Valentine returns to Italy with her grandmother to learn new techniques and seek one-of-a-kind materials for building a pair of glorious shoes to beat their rivals. There, in Tuscany, Naples, and on the Isle of Capri, a family secret is revealed as Valentine discovers her artistic voice and much more, turning her life and the family business upside down in ways she never expected. Very Valentine is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani's trademark heart and humor.
About the Author
Beloved by millions of readers around the world for her "dazzling" novels (USA Today), Adriana Trigiani is “a master of palpable and visual detail” (Washington Post) and “a comedy writer with a heart of gold” (New York Times). She is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty books of fiction and nonfiction, including her latest, The Good Left Undone- an instant New York Times best seller, Book of the Month pick and People’s Book of the Week. Her work is published in 38 languages around the world. An award-winning playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker, Adriana’s screen credits include writer/director of the major motion picture of her debut novel, Big Stone Gap, the adaptation of her novel Very Valentine and director of Then Came You. Adriana grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she co-founded The Origin Project, an in-school writing program serving over 1,700 students in Appalachia. She is at work on her next novel for Dutton at Penguin Random House.
Follow Adriana on Facebook and Instagram @AdrianaTrigiani and on TikTok @AdrianaTrigianiAuthor or visit her website: AdrianaTrigiani.com.
Join Adriana’s Facebook LIVE show, Adriana Ink, in conversation with the world’s greatest authors- Tuesdays at 3 PM EST! For more from Adriana’s interviews, you can subscribe to her Meta “Bulletin” column, Adriana Spills the Ink: adrianatrigiani.bulletin.com/subscribe.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Very Valentine LP
A NovelBy Adriana TrigianiHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Adriana TrigianiAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061668999
Chapter One
Leonard's of Great Neck
I'm not the pretty sister.
I'm not the smart sister either. I am the funny one. I've been called that for so long, for so many years, in fact, that all of my life I thought it was one word: Funnyone.
If I had to die, and believe me, I don't want to, but if I had to choose a location, I'd want to die right here in the ladies' lounge at Leonard's of Great Neck. It's the mirrors. I look slimsational, even in 3-D. I'm no scientist, but there's something about the slant of the full-length glass, the shimmer of the blue marble counters, and the golden light of the pavé chandeliers that creates an optical illusion, turning my reflection into a long, lean, pale pink swizzle stick.
This is my eighth reception (third as an attendant) at Leonard's La Dolce Vita, the formal name for our family's favorite Long Island wedding factory. Everyone I know has been married here, or, at least everyone I'm related to.
My sisters and I made our debut as flower girls in 1984 for our cousin Mary Theresa, who had more attendants on the dais than guests at the tables. Our cousin's wedding might have been a sacred exchange of vows between a man and a woman, but it was also a show, with costumes, choreography, and special lighting, making the bride the star and the groom the grip.
Mary T. considers herself Italian-American royalty, so she had the Knights of Columbus form a crossing guard for our entrance into the Starlight Venetian Room.
The knights were regal in their tuxedos, red sashes, black capes, and tricornered hats with the marabou plumes. I took my place behind the other girls in the pro-cession as the band played "Nobody Does It Better," but I turned around to run away as the knights held up their swords to form a canopy. Aunt Feen grabbed me and gave me a shove. I closed my eyes, gripped my bouquet, and bolted under the blades like I was running for sane.
Despite my fear of sharp and clanging objects, I fell in love with Leonard's that day. It was my first Italian formal. I couldn't wait to grow up and emulate my mother and her friends who drank Harvey Wallbangers in cut-crystal tumblers while wearing silver sequins from head to toe. When I was nine years old, I thought Leonard's had class. Never mind that from the passing lane on Northern Boulevard it looks like a white stucco casino on the French Riviera by way of Long Island. For me, Leonard's was a House of Enchantments.
The La Dolce Vita experience begins when you pull up to the entrance. The wide circular driveway is a dead ringer for Jane Austen's Pemberley and also resembles the valet stand at Neiman Marcus, outside the Short Hills mall. This is the thing about Leonard's: everywhere you look, it reminds you of elegant places you have already been. The two-story picture windows are reminiscent of the Metropolitan Opera House, while the tiered fountain is strictly Trevi. You almost believe you're in the heart of Rome until you realize the cascading water is actually drowning out the traffic on I-495.
The landscaping is a marvel of botanical grooming, with boxwood sheared into long rectangles, low borders of yew, privet hedges in cropped ovals, and bayberry sculpted into twirly ice- cream-cone shapes. The manicured shrubs are set in beds of shiny river stones, an appropriate pre-motif to the ice sculptures that tower over the raw bar inside.
The exterior lights suggest the strip in Las Vegas, but it's far more tasteful here, as the bulbs are recessed, giving the place a low, twinkling glow. Topiaries shaped like crescent moons flank the entrance doors. Beneath them, low meatball bushes serve as a base for the birds-of-paradise, which pop out of the shrubs like cocktail umbrellas.
The band plays "Burning Down the House" as I take a moment to catch my breath in the ladies' lounge. I'm alone for the first time on my sister Jaclyn's wedding day and I like it. It's been a long one. I'm holding the tension of the entire family in the vertebrae of my neck. When I marry, I will elope to city hall because my bones can't take the pressure of another Roncalli wedding extravaganza. I'd miss the beer-battered shrimp and the pâté rillettes, but I'd survive. The months of planning this wedding nearly gave me an ulcer, and the actual execution bestowed on my right eye a pulsating tic that could only be soothed by holding a frozen teething ring I bogarted from cousin Kitty Calzetti's baby after the Nuptial Mass. Despite the agita, it's a wonderful day, because I'm happy for my baby sister, who I remember holding, like a Capodimonte rose, on the day she was born.
I hold my martini-shaped eve-ning bag covered in sequins (the wedding-party gift from the bride) up to the mirror and say, "I'd like to thank Kleinfeld of Brooklyn, who knocked off Vera Wang to strapless perfection. And I'd like to thank Spanx, the girdle genius, who turned my pear shape into a surfboard." I move closer to the mirror and check my teeth. It ain't an Italian wedding without clams casino dusted in parsley flakes, and you know where those end up.
My professional makeup job provided (at half price) by the bride's best friend's sister-in-law, Nancy DeNoia, is really holding up. She did my face at around eight o'clock this morning, and it's now supper time but I still look fresh. "It's the powder. Banane by LeClerc," my older sister, Tess, said. And she knows: she was matte through two childbirths. We have the pictures to prove it.
This morning, my sisters, our mother, and I sat on folding chairs in front of Mom's Golden Age of Hollywood mirror in the bedroom of their Tudor in Forest Hills, pretty (almost) maids all in a row.
Continues...
Excerpted from Very Valentine LPby Adriana Trigiani Copyright © 2009 by Adriana Trigiani. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper; Large type / Large print edition (February 4, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 562 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061668990
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061668999
- Item Weight : 1.45 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,499,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19,833 in Family Saga Fiction
- #22,952 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- #29,388 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Beloved by millions of readers around the world as one of the "reigning queens of women's fiction", (USA Today), Adriana Trigiani is The New York Times bestselling author of 20 books in fiction and nonfiction, including The Shoemaker’s Wife, The Good Left Undone, Don’t Sing at the Table, and Lucia, Lucia. Published in 38 languages, The New York Times calls her "a comedy writer with a heart of gold", and her books "tiramisu for the soul". She is host of the hit podcast, You Are What You Read, in conversation with the great minds of our time about the books that built their souls.
Adriana is an award-winning playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker. She wrote and directed the major motion picture adaptation of her debut novel Big Stone Gap, adapted her novel Very Valentine for television and directed Then Came You. She wrote and directed the documentary film, Queens of the Big Time, winner of the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Audience award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film was also featured at the London and Hong Kong International Film festivals.
Trigiani grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she co-founded The Origin Project, an in-school writing program serving over 2,700 students in Appalachia. In 2023, she was knighted with the Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia by President Sergio Mattarella of Italy. She is proud to serve on the New York State Council on the Arts and lives in New York City with her family.
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The cast of characters is vibrant, colorful and enchanting. The story takes place in the glorious Manhattan and also in the picture perfect hills of Italy.
Valentine Roncalli lives with her 80 year old grandmother and they work together on the Angelini Shoe Company. Her family has been dedicated to making exquisite wedding shoes since 1903; they are one of the last family owned businesses in Greenwich Village and now the company is facing financial collapse and Valentine wants to save the business because of what it represents and because she loves the trade.
Teodora Angelini is Valentine's grandmother and the master artisan but she is old and has no clue as to how she should expand her brand and grow the business in the 21st century.
Valentine wants to assume charge but her brother Alfred, wants to see the building altogether and leave Valentine without a job or a home.
While juggling a romance with a gorgeous chef called Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge that must be presented to Bergdorf, Valentine goes to Italy with Teodora to learn new techniques and seek one of a kind materials for her shoes.
In Italy she will discover that her grandma holds a dear secret and she will also learn that her romance is not as important for Roman as it is for her. The trip will make her change and become a better artiste and a more mature woman, one who can take a challenge and make it work in her favor.
This book is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani's heart and humor. A must read, go and get it I just can't wait for the saga to continue!
At the beginning of the twenty- first century and the dawn of grandmother's retirement, Valentine is locked in battle with her businessman brother, who wants to sell the valuable piece of real estate the shop and their apartment are housed in, rather than carry on the family's business. Valentine struggles to find a way to save the business, which has developed her own artistic skills in shoe design, as well as "beat the clock" to love by her thirty-fourth birthday, especially when she discovers even grandma has a suitor.
Elaborate details slow down the plot, at times, but assure that we feel right at home with characters and settings in both New York and Italy. Fun, poignant, and educational. What more could a reader want!
Unfortunately, the major characters weren’t treated properly. It seemed like maybe this book was over-edited, cutting out a lot of detail on the person who was supposed to be Valentine’s love interest. It felt like the relationship with Roman went from absolute zero to absolute love WAY too fast, and it turns out he was an unnecessary character anyway. One of my peeves is minor characters thrust into major roles. Roman does nothing to progress the story. If he was left out we would have known just as much about Valentine and Angelini Shoes, and we could have gotten to the end of the book with her successes intact. He was a distraction, and at the end I wondered why he was even in there. He was useless.
As for Valentine herself, on the first page (and on subsequent pages) the author goes out of her way to make sure we understand that she’s not the pretty one, not the smart one, but rather the funny one. The character was never funny. She seemed depressed and angry most of the time. Although those emotions worked for this character in this story, stop telling us she’s funny. She’s not. With as many men throwing themselves at her during the course of the book, it seems like she could pass for the pretty one. Or the sexy one. The character was set up to be something that the story didn’t bear out, so maybe the reader was supposed to take it on faith. Not a great idea in storytelling.
All that said, I would read another Valentine book. As stated earlier, there was a lot to like about Very Valentine. Pieces of the story were well told and the author does a fantastic job with descriptions of colors, shoes, and places. She also did very well with the actual minor characters and I really enjoyed those parts. With better editing and maybe some more time to hash out the odd / conflicting loose pieces, and another 100 pages to examine Roman as a real love interest and to develop the romantic story line, this book would be a 5/5.
Top reviews from other countries
Two things made me want to dislike this book. First, as a European, it annoys me when Americans call themselves Italians. Italians are Italians. They come from Italy.
Second, we are past 10% into the book before an initiating event occurs that starts the story moving. That’s 10% of the book that is pure introduction, exposition and wondering if something is going to happen soon.
I'm telling you this so you know Trigiani won me over in spite of all this.
The Italian American problem didn’t matter so much because Trigiani is able to vividly reproduce this American subculture with writing that is both beautiful and funny. Thus 10% of the book being exposition feels like having dinner with someone delightful sharing stories about a family wedding. It doesn’t matter what I think about American’s imagining they’re Italians – Trigiani shows us what this means to them and how it permeates their lives.
As for the romance, this is a love story between Valentine and her dream – making shoes - as much as it is Valentine and Roman. As her relationships help her discover more about herself, you’ll join a journey of self-discover and self-affirmation delightfully positive and real. The research into shoemaking is top notch and Trigiani writes this so well it fascinates
I rather miss Valentine now the book is finished – although this is the first of a trilogy so I can always find out what happens next. But this book was satisfying, complete, and human. I wouldn’t hesitate to read more of this author’s work
Id recommend this to maturer readers (i.e. not teens).