Imperfect Pairings

by Jackie Townsend

Overview

An encounter with an Italian leads a woman down a path of love and self discovery, though this is not your typical Italian love story. Smart, career driven Jamie had not intended to fall in love. And to a foreigner no less, an Italian who doesn't reveal his heritage at first. Jack is short for John, he tells her, but she soon discovers that John is short for Giovanni. Insanely handsome and intense but unreadable, Giovanni is a man of few words. When after two months together she accompanies him to his cousin s wedding in Italy, Jamie learns that he hasn't been back to the troubled family estate in ten years, but with one step upon the rich Italian soil covered in ancient vines, it's as if he never left. Suddenly his language is no longer her language, and Jamie is drawn inexplicably into an Italy that outsiders rarely see--a crumbling villa, an old family scandal, a tragic mother, an estranged father, and a host of spirited Italian cousins. Jack is finally forced to face the destiny he's been renouncing; and Jamie makes a rash decision, unaware that it will change her life forever.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780983791553
Publisher:	Townsend Inc.
Publication date:	05/15/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	414
File size:	3 MB

Editorial Reviews

Townsend's (Reel Life, 2012) second novel presents a portrait of two clashing cultures, embodied in the relationship between a career-minded American woman and a conflicted Italian man. The novel depicts the tried-and-true themes of the New versus Old World, and pragmatism versus romance, through its main characters: Jamie, a driven woman who has found success in a man's world, and Jack, her Italian lover who is torn between his American business and his family's legacy. Jamie is a child of divorce, dogmatically anti-marriage and single-minded in her professional quest. Jack's character is more interesting: Pressured to achieve success in America, he's a beacon of hope for his bankrupt, haunted Italian family. However, his heart is in the old Italian ways, and he can't escape his attachment to his family's antiquated wine business. The opening chapters are set in Italy, where Jack brings Jamie as his date to his brother's wedding; from the beginning, readers get a visceral look at Jack's struggle to reconcile his feelings for his family with his life in America. The flowing prose is polished, but too easily glosses over moments that could offer more emotional heft. For example, readers experience Jamie's attraction to Jack, but never his attraction to her, thus obscuring one of the driving forces of Jack's character: his love for Jamie. Indeed, the third-person narration stays very close to Jamie throughout, but never reveals as much about her thoughts some readers might expect. Jamie is so emotionally blocked that without objective insight into her inner conflict readers may find her one-dimensional and unsympathetic. A pleasant read, rich in cultural ethos, but with little character depth.

Kirkus Reviews