Italian Love Cake

Marie Genovese looks out from her apartment window above the Five & Ten and wonders how she'll save the failing store she's inherited from her mother. In a historical moment overshadowed by fear, economic uncertainty, and the controlling behavior of men, a powerful line of women-living and dead-helps Marie navigate her path to independence.

With the realist detail of Sinclair Lewis and the modern, feminist sensibility of Elena Ferrante, Italian Love Cake is the account of a woman thwarted in...