Italian Fever - Tapa dura

A dark rendering of the 'American in Italy' story. (HARPERS & QUEEN (July))

Beautifully written. (EVE (August 2004))

Martin's writing works best in the detail...[She] captures the tragic humour of DV's funeral and acutely observes the petty manipulations of Massimo. She also creates a vivid sense of dislocation as Lucy is both physically frail and unable to understand the language and cultural norms of the world in which she finds herself. (Kath Murphy SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY (4.7.04))

Valerie Martin's ITALIAN FEVER is an absolute joy to read...[it] is part love story, part ghost story, and a wholly enjoyable and intelligent summer read...This is a wise, intelligent novel about how bad writers can suffer just as much for their art as good ones, and how true friendship is better than a thousand kisses. It should be enjoyed both in its own rights, and as a worthy addition to the growing line of Tuscan fictions. (Amanda Craig NEW STATESMAN (19.7.04))

acute and playful reading. (Sarah Dunant GUARDIAN (17.7.04))

Anyone who has ever had a foreign love affair will appreciate the subtlety with which Martin weaves her spell. (GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1.8.04))

Part love story, part murder mystery, part psychological study...Valerie Martin's familiarity with Italy is put to good use in her renditions of the Tuscan countryside and of Rome, but it is in her vivid descriptions of Gianlorenzo Bernini's sculpture, Apollo and Daphne, and Piero della Francesca's fresco of the Resurrection that her writing truly soars. Worth reading for those alone. (Penny Austin TIME OUT (11-18 August))

It makes for an interesting and thoughtful read. (SUFFOLK FREE PRESS (29.8.04))

A sensual, intelligent, engaging book - a modern EM Forster. (SKY TEXT)

lighthearted...inquisitive and...joyfully irreverent. (Alberto Manguel THE SPECTATOR (18/25 December 2004))

Thirtysomething New Yorker Lucy Stark leads a quiet, solitary life working for a bestselling but remarkably untalented writer. When he dies at a villa in Tuscany, Lucy flies to Italy to settle his affairs. What begins as a grim chore soon threatens her self-reliance and her very sense of reality. In ITALIAN FEVER, Valerie Martin evokes a modern woman's headlong tumble into a world where E.M. Forster's angels feared to tread. Smart and sophisticated, this novel takes us on a journey from which we return, like Lucy, utterly changed.