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Veena’s review of The Secret Love Letters of Olivia Moretti by Jennifer Probst
Contemporary Romance published by Berkley 22 Feb 22 

Ms. Probst delivers another winner full of human emotion that just touches your heart, has difficult relationships and a beautiful setting.  The story hits true to home as three sisters, now adults, have grown apart, their mother’s sudden death and secret love letters makes them question what had been a sure thing before. The journey of discovery will do a lot more than help them find the truths their mother had long kept secret.

The book deftly ties the past and future together as the author explores Olivia’s first foray to the Amalfi Coast with her aunt and the beauty of first love. Even as things are falling apart at home, Olivia is exploring the love of her life with a beautiful Italian man during her summers in Europe. When the reality of leaving the USA and settling in Positano, as well as her attraction to a man she’s met in New York all collide, Olivia decides on marrying her American and settling in the USA, leaving her Italian lover as a wonderful memory.

As a mother of three beautiful girls and wife of a cheating husband, Olivia questions her decisions a couple of times in her life, but, before she can do anything about changing the status quo, she dies suddenly. Now her daughters, who have a dysfunctional relationship amongst them and are at crossroads in their own lives, head off to Positano to find the truth and potentially to dispose of the beautiful property they never knew belonged to their mother.

I loved how the sisters came to terms with their own relationships as they found ways to bridge challenges. They each were having in their own personal lives, even as they looked for their mother’s Italian lover, whom they only knew by his first initial. Being one of three sisters and loving the Amalfi Coast really brought this one home for me personally. I really liked how the story worked out and happiness was achieved by all in their own ways.

Grade: A

Summary:

A secret romance sends three estranged sisters to the Amalfi Coast to follow clues about their mother’s past, and challenges them to a whole new future, in this emotional novel from New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst.

Priscilla, Devon, and Bailey haven’t been close in years, but when the sisters are forced to come together to settle their mother’s estate, they discover a secret.  In an old trunk, they happen upon ownership papers for a house on the Amalfi Coast, along with a love letter to their mother from an anonymous man, promising to meet her in Italy during the summer of her sixty-fifth birthday.

Now they’re questioning everything they knew about her history. In order to get answers about the woman they thought they knew; they’ll have to go back to where it all started. The sisters embark on a trip to the stunning cliffside village of Positano, Italy, to track down the mysterious ex-lover, and figure out who their mother really was.

As Priscilla, Devon, and Bailey unearth the truth, they also experience the magic of Italy, the power of sisterly love, a little unexpected romance, and newfound hope for the future.

No excerpt available.