My book club read The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner in 2021. I remember it being a book club in the COVID era where we met in someone's garage - hey, is this just a Midwestern thing where people have giant garages and people hang out in them? - and it got sort of mixed reviews, but I thought it was okay and I like how it made me think about how easy it has been to erase the lives and names of women in history. So I picked up The Amalfi Curse to fulfill the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge prompt about making me want to travel to Italy. It would have to be an amazing book to make me want to travel internationally, but I gave it the old college try.
They were streghe del mare—sea witches—with unparalleled power over the ocean. (location 136)
In another timeline we have a nautical archeologist named Haven who travels to Positano with two missions - to learn more about the numerous shipwrecks off its coast, but also to find gems that her father had discovered on his last dive.
It's a bit historical mystery - Haven spends so much time in the archives! It's a bit magical realism. It's a bit romance. It's a bit backstabbing academia.
It's also boring. Our historical sea witch is vaguely interesting, but Penner seems to want to spend more time with children and men and certainly not enough time on the ocean magic. And Haven? What a snoozefest. Penner neglected to give her a back story beyond having dead father - not even showing me how closer they were - so I don't understand her motivations or decision making.
Maybe this would work for you, but it didn't for me. 2/5 stars
Things I looked up:
belemnite fossil (location 119) - the preserved internal skeleton of an extinct, squid-like marine creature (Belemnitida) that lived from the Late Triassic to the Late Cretaceous periods (roughly 201 to 66 million years ago)
Tyrrhenian Sea (location 1829) - part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy
millegrain (location 2759) - a jewelry-making technique that adds a continuous border of tiny, uniform metal beads along the edges of a setting, band, or gemstone bezel
tramontana (location 3372) - a cold, dry, strong northerly wind blowing across the Mediterranean and Italy
ubriaco (location 3548) - a traditional, firm cow's milk cheese from the Veneto region of Italy whose wheels are soaked in wine, grape must, or pomace. This sounds revolting.
Aiutami (location 3597) - this means "help me" in Italian
Hat mentions (why hats?):
dark green hat (location 1370)
dressed in men’s attire, with their hair tucked up in hats (location 2124)
The brim of my hat mussed up his hair (location 2877)
Pulling the brim of my hat down (location 2933)
****************
Do you want to learn more about ocean magic? Do you want to go to Italy?
So this book didn't succeed in making you want to go to Italy? I've been to Italy, and I don't have any desire to travel internationally right now. Ocean magic sounds interesting, but I'll take your word for it and skip this book.
ReplyDeleteI'm just here to say that I've gone to actual parties in people's garages--birthdays, graduations, reunions. I am a Midwesterner--born, raised, and still living--in Ohio. I know people who plunk chairs down in the front of their garages and watch the world go by for hours at a time.
ReplyDelete