A Portrait of Emily Price

I loved the atmosphere of this book. There is something so scrumptious about Reay's writing to begin with, and she did an excellent job immersing me as the reader in a story of art and artists and family. A good word to describe this book would be “colorful.” The saga of Emily's hasty marriage to a man she “just knew” and the humor of her fainting at the wedding (a favorite scene!) were quickly morphed into the new life Emily springs into in Italy with her new husband's family. There were so many hurdles to overcome as she tries to fit into a close-knit family who is occupied with grief as their patriarch, Lucio, slips closer to the grave each day.

The one thing that felt like a real stretch to me was how easily Emily shifted into the Catholic traditions and the practices...pondering the stations of the cross and so on. I suppose she wasn't presented as a staunch Protestant to begin with, but such a transition still had to be a bit of a shock for an American church-goer; and it seemed like she didn't anticipate any issues with the theology of her new church home.

Content: wine and the drinking thereof
Some heavy flirting from Ben as he sweeps her off her feet in the week before he proposes to her; after the wedding, there's nothing inappropriate. I was so glad to read the heartfelt but entirely appropriate scenes of them as a couple. I'd love it if more authors took this approach on how to describe wedded intimacy.