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Summary
Summary
Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is heartbroken over the death of her beloved aunt Rose. But the shock goes even deeper when she learns that the woman who has been like a mother to her has left her entire estate to Julie's twin sister. The only thing Julie receives is a key-one carried by her mother on the day she herself died-to a safety-deposit box in Siena, Italy.
This key sends Julie on a journey that will change her life forever-a journey into the troubled past of her ancestor Giulietta Tolomei. In 1340, still reeling from the slaughter of her parents, Giulietta was smuggled into Siena, where she met a young man named Romeo. Their ill-fated love turned medieval Siena upside-down and went on to inspire generations of poets and artists, the story reaching its pinnacle in Shakespeare's famous tragedy.
But six centuries have a way of catching up to the present, and Julie gradually begins to discover that here, in this ancient city, the past and present are hard to tell apart. The deeper she delves into the history of Romeo and Giulietta, and the closer she gets to the treasure they allegedly left behind, the greater the danger surrounding her-superstitions, ancient hostilities, and personal vendettas. As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in the unforgettable blood feud, she begins to fear that the notorious curse-"A plague on both your houses!"-is still at work, and that she is destined to be its next target. Only someone like Romeo, it seems, could save her from this dreaded fate, but his story ended long ago. Or did it?
From Anne Fortier comes a sweeping, beautifully written novel of intrigue and identity, of love and legacy, as a young woman discovers that her own fate is irrevocably tied-for better or worse-to literature's greatest star-crossed lovers.
Author Notes
Anne Fortier grew up in Denmark and emigrated to the United States in 2002 to work in film. She co-produced the Emmy-winning documentary Fire and Ice: The Winter War of Finland and Russia and holds a Ph.D. in the history of ideas from Aarhus University, Denmark. The story of Juliet was inspired by Anne Fortier's mother, who always considered Verona her true home . . . until she discovered Siena.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fortier bobs and weaves between Shakespearean tragedy and popular romance for a high-flying debut in which American Julie Jacobs travels to Siena in search of her Italian heritage-and possibly an inheritance-only to discover she is descended from 14th-century Giulietta Tomei, whose love for Romeo defied their feuding families and inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Julie's hunt leads her to the families' descendants, still living in Siena, still feuding, and still struggling under the curse of the friar who wished a plague on both their houses. Julie's unraveling of the past is assisted by a Felliniesque contessa and the contessa's handsome nephew, and complicated by mobsters, police, and a mysterious motorcyclist. To understand what happened centuries ago, in the previous generation, and all around her, Julie relies on relics: a painting, a journal, a dagger, a ring. Readers enjoy the additional benefit of antique texts alternating with contemporary narratives, written in the language of modern romance and enlivened by brisk storytelling. Fortier navigates around false clues and twists, resulting in a dense, heavily plotted love story that reads like a Da Vinci Code for the smart modern woman. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
In Fortier's debut, the rights to which have been sold in 29 territories around the world, a descendant of Juliet goes to Italy to search for her Romeo.As children, twin sisters Giulietta and Giannozza were sent from Italy to live with their great aunt Rose in Virginia after their parents perished in an auto crash. The children were raised as Julie and Janice Jacobs by Rose and her flamboyant butler Umberto. Now Aunt Rose has died. According to her will, Janice inherits Aunt Rose's entire estate. Giulietta inherits a key to a safe-deposit box in Siena, Italy, accompanied by a letter from her aunt explaining that her mother left a treasure for her which relates to her true identity: Giulietta Tolomei, whose family tree goes all the way back to the original Giulietta and her twin sister Giannozza. The Tolomeis and the Salimbenis were the actual feuding families, from Siena, on whom Shakespeare based the Capulets and Montagues. Once in Siena, Giulietta discovers that the rivalry is still roiling. Alessandro Salimbeni, the handsome policeman who helps her explore her past, is descended from the evil 14th-century nobleman who forced Juliet to marry him after he arranged not only for the murder of her entire family but also for her fianc Romeo's assassination. Romeo was the scion of the Marescotti clan, a military family often embroiled in the Tolomei/Salimbeni wars. Alternating with the present-day story are chapters set in 1340, presenting a far gorier retelling of Romeo and Juliet's doomed love than Shakespeare imagined. And what of Romeo's present-day counterpart? As Giulietta grows closer to Alessandro, after he deters a thug who has been tailing her, she's on the point of deconstructing the family curse, when Janice shows up, claiming that Aunt Rose's will was a scam serving some nefarious Salimbeni plot. The same dark forces were behind the deaths of their parents, which may have been no accident. And who is Umberto, really?The promising premise bogs down too often in repetition and excess verbiage.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Fortier's debut offers a beguiling mix of romance, intrigue, history, and Shakespeare. Twenty-five-year-old Julie Jacobs is stunned to find the aunt who raised her has left everything to her self-involved twin, Janice, save for the key to a safe-deposit box in Siena, Italy. Hoping to get some answers about the suspicious deaths of her parents over two decades ago, Julie travels to Siena and learns she's actually a member of the Tolomeis, a powerful Sienese family. Her first acquaintances in Siena are a vibrant woman and her handsome godson Alessandro, who happen to be members of a rival family, the Salimbenis. Julie can't figure out why Alessandro seems to dislike her almost instantly, but she's soon embroiled in the mystery opened up by the safe-deposit box, which contains notebooks and letters belonging to her mother. Soon Julie is engrossed in the historical story of Romeo and his love, Giulietta, and on the trail of a legendary treasure. Lovers of adventurous fiction will lose themselves in Fortier's exciting, intricately woven tale.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
In this long first novel, a 25-year-old Italian-American, Julie Jacobs, goes to Siena to claim a mysterious inheritance from her aunt, a box of documents locked in a safe deposit box. There she discovers that she's a descendant of Giulietta Tolomei, believed to have been the model for Shakespeare's Juliet. Which means that Julie will become involved in a centuriesold family feud, be threatened by mobsters and trapped in catacombs, decode clues to locate a treasure, try to determine just how her parents died, dispel an ancient curse and resist a suspicious contemporary Romeo. Though frenetically busy, she still has time to read and listen to long-winded histories of the medieval Giulietta and her suitor. In these sections, Fortier ably represents a range of 14th-century ideas and adroitly mimics some of the wit of Shakespeare's dialogue. But the rest of the novel's prose is insistently mundane, as if Fortier were striving to make us forget that Julie's troubles are even less likely than Giulietta's.
Library Journal Review
Most readers are familiar with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but not everyone knows that the Bard based his play on an old Italian tale in which the doomed lovers meet and die in the medieval city of Siena. Drawing on this tale, Fortier's historical debut features a plot as complicated as a Shakespearean play. When Julie's aunt dies, she is left with a key to a safe-deposit box in Siena, where her long-dead mother supposedly left a treasure, but finds only old letters and a ragged copy of Romeo and Juliet. She learns she is directly descended from one of the play's warring families, and her mother left clues to find "Juliet's Eyes," gemstones rumored to be embedded in a lost golden statue. As she draws closer to the treasure, she attracts the attention of a handsome beau descended from Romeo's family line as well as that of a group who make the Mafia look like choirboys. Verdict While the publisher is comparing it to Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale and Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus, this entertaining historical thriller is more in line with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (but much better written!), with its hunt for clues to a secret. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/10; academic and library marketing; multicity author tour; ebook ISBN 978-0-345-51977-1.]-Jamie Kallio, Thomas Ford Memorial Lib., Western Springs, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.