I really don’t know what else can be said about this book that already hasn’t been said in over two thousand reviews. The fact that this is a debut novel does stand out for me, however. It is a well written story with quite a number of characters who are also well written. The story is definitely engaging enough to have kept my interest throughout the nearly 500 pages. There was a bit of repetitive word usage that got a bit tedious. How many times do I need to read the word roil?

The “Historical Fiction” tag attached to this novel is a bit misleading. Yes, the story moves through a century of history and brief mentions are made as to real events occurring in the background, however, none of the characters in the book are real people. This is a work of pure fiction and not exactly what I would consider historical fiction.

Stella Fortuna is, without doubt, a sympathetic character and you can’t help but feel empathy for her struggles and pain. I feel that her sister, Tina, could have had more depth. She fell a bit flat as far as her true nature - jealousy plays an important role in the two sisters’ relationship.

Where the story truly fell apart, why the only 3 star review, was the ending. After everything we live through; Stella’s birth in a small Italian town, her parents, her emigration to America, her marriage and children, and all of her “deaths”, the ending was a massively rushed affair without closure. Once a story reaches the nearly 500 page threshold, another 20 or 50 pages wouldn’t bother me if the result would be a beautifully wrapped up ending. I feel a bit cheated.

At the end of the day, I would still recommend this and I look forward to reading another book by Juliet Grames.