Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes

Anita Hughes is able to see the brightest side of life from food, to drinks, from landscapes to exotic trips. Her descriptions are warm, she really enjoys life


Emerald Coast  published by St.Martin's Press this August 1 is able to make the difference.

Why?

Real old values are back. Love is love and is not connected with the value of money able to ruin everything and everyone and it is a sentiment treated with respect and not with superficiality.
Rich people are not light people without any kind of ethic or problem or brain.
Rich people have a brain, a heart, feelings, culture, a life and problems as well.
The story is not just interesting.
It is written very well and there are portrayed real characters with their sufferance,  joys, happiness. They live their life in the entire intensity of it. In a word: they are alive.

I have loved also the interconnection, fusion in the various chapters between the "now" and "past", present and memories.

Anita Hughes is "a succulent describer."
She describes a beautiful vacation, passing through cocktails to fabulous dinners, stunning views, as no other ones can do better than her with a vision of life that it is incredibly beauty.

Of course, life is also something else and this time Anita added also the "something else:" feelings, sentiments, real life, real love, real sufferance, avoiding superficiality.


Sardinian's location chosen by Hughes for her characters is Porto Cervo.

What I loved the most was the  historic reconstruction of Sardinia as a touristic exclusive locality. I didn't know this story.
The Aga Khan, his arrival to this island, his love for the island and the decision of inviting a lot of people, VIPS, like Grace Kelly and so on in this corner of italian Paradise. I guess that these bits can interest a lot the reader, because the life of the jet-set is interesting and because every locality speaks of us, our past, our traditions.

The love-story is set up in various parts of the world but mainly in Italy and it pays a lot because the Bel Paese presents a different dimension, also when we speak of "exclusive places."

The beginning is this one: Lily is 35 and she is divorcing from her biggest love of her life: Oliver, after 10 years of marriage, and a daughter, Louisa of 6 years.
Their love starts when Oliver works in Naples, Italia. Both in their 20's, their love bloomed in Spello a medieval locality  of Umbria, and continues to Florence where Lily arrives thanks to Oliver for later, leaving for the USA.
This love-story continues through letters, when Oliver decides to afford to San Francisco where Lily lives for trying to see if a real love can be possible.
The answer is yes.
There is another man, Roger, very appreciated by the parents of Lily, in particular by Lily's mother, but Lily is uninterested to him declaring to her mom: "I am sorry I am engaged with Oliver."
Oliver thinks that this is perfect.
They love each other, they want to spend the rest of their life together and so what should they wait for?

Oliver doesn't still have a house and a good work and stability, but love is love and money is not anymore the priority for this couple, but starting their life together seeing what will happen later.


Being Hughes a positive writer there is a good happy end for everyone, of course.

Thanks to Lily's good advice, in fact, Oliver will become a great food critic, for the Chronicle of San Francisco at first and later for the NYT.
Lily arrives in Sardinia for launching her new store. She has stores in Milan, and USA. Oliver is there as well because of a restaurant's review for the Times with his new flame, Angela a florist from New York.

Can ten years spent together being deleted for a couple maybe still in love? How much important  memories are for us?

If for some people moving on pretty simple because they lived terrible experiences with their partners, for Lily is difficult. She still loves Oliver and she feels shame declaring that she is a young to-be-soon divorced woman although she wants this divorce, and she asks to her personal butler to find for her a sort of companion for let think at her husband that she is not alone.
At the same time they both remember. The beauty of the beginning, their marriage, their years spent together, their living together.
And: will their love-story survive at a divorce?


 I suggest this book to everyone. I know that it will be appreciated.


I thank NetGalley and St.Martin's Press for this eBook.



Anna Maria Polidori