ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – A Winter in New York by Josie Silver
A Winter in New York by Josie Silver is published by Penguin Viking and out now in paperback, eBook and audiobook. The proof copy I read was shared with me by a blogger friend.
Where better to start again than New York?
Iris arrives in the city of dreams, intent on restarting her culinary career, and leaving her recent heartache behind.
Wandering the streets at a famous food festival, Iris feels like she’s living in a movie. Then she stumbles upon a gelateria that looks strangely familiar. Inside, she meets Gio: a perfect leading man with an irresistible smile – and a crisis of his own.
As fate would have it, Iris is the one person with the answer to his problem. She just can’t tell him that . . .
So, can Iris finally let go of the past – and let herself fall in love?
A sumptuously cosy seasonal love story set in sparkling New York, from the queen of the ‘what if?’ romance Josie Silver.
Iris has fled from her life in London to start a new life in New York, with only a battered suitcase and her trusty gelato machine to her name. Whilst getting back on her feet, she comes across a gelateria that stirs something in her memory and Gio, whose family owns the gelateria stirs something in her!
A Winter in New York is THE most beautiful book. I absolutely adored every bit of it. The characters are perfect, the story is tender and warm, and there are foodie references galore via the gelateria and the wider New York streets. Iris’s recent past is raw and painful and Gio and his family provide the salve she needs, but it’s complicated by the past, her mother, and a secret that she should never have been told.
I know when a book has really burrowed its way into my heart when I don’t want to let it go, when I’m playing Joni Mitchell songs and tearing up, and when the characters feel like real people. It’s not helped by Gio being rather a dish, an Italian man with a gorgeous personality to match. The scenes between him and Iris were electrifyingly passionate. I loved the way his huge family enveloped Iris and how it was just what she needed.
A foodie love story is probably my favourite kind of book and this one is a top-notch case in point. It’s magical and touching, heart-rending and emotive, and full of joy. I’ve been thoroughly transported to New York and to be honest, I’m not quite ready to leave.
Josie Silver is an unabashed romantic who met her husband when she stepped on his foot on his twenty-first birthday. She lives with him, their two sons, and their cats in England. She is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of One Day in December, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, One Night on the Island and A Winter in New York.
