The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany

A travel memoir, story of forgiveness, growth, love, and hope. What more could be needed?

For generations second-born daughters of the Fontana family have been told of their curse...the curse of never finding lasting love. It's a curse some second-born daughters, like Emilia, do not believe in.

When Emilia's estranged Aunt Poppy reaches out to invite her on an all-expense paid trip to Italy, against her better judgment, she agrees. Aunt Poppy says she can severe the curse and free all the second-born daughters, both present and future, but what does Emilia care...she doesn't believe....right?

This is such a cute, and heartwarming story. It was a joy “walking” alongside Emilia and Luce as they both grew into who they were meant to be. Aunt Poppy is an amazing character and I adore her so much!

The only thing that bugged me a tad (hence the 4 instead of 5 stars) is the sister dynamic between Daria and Emilia. They were once close and grew apart to the point where Daria was a downright troll to Emilia. The reasoning behind this distance didn't make much sense to me.

It's the same between Poppy and Rosa. Poppy keeps apologizing to Rosa but she should not have been the one to make amends. I don't have a sister so maybe there is something to these relationships I don't understand?

At any rate, it's a fun and sweet read and one I highly recommend.

There were some good parts in this book, but also some really annoying parts. I could have eliminated Emilia and Lucy and only read Poppy's story and I would have really liked it. Poppy was effervescent and strong-willed, and Emilia was the opposite. I hate when dual perspective books do this. Emilia was the archetypal naïve main character that is trying to find herself throughout the story. She's described as frumpy, but gets a new pair of glasses and suddenly all the men are attracted to her and she then falls in love with them. Of course they all end up not being right for her, but that's all because she has an abusive family who perpetuates a lie about this “curse” that she has. And I'm not even going to get into the token “snarky at first but then sweet and gay” cousin that was written in as some cross between a shoulder angel plot device and an attempt at inclusion for the sake of clout. No thanks. I'm not going to lie, I read the synopsis and thought this would be a fantasy and I think that's why I ended up so disappointed.