Book description
You really must read Ciao Bella.' Sunday Times Fascinating
comic delightful' Sunday Times Humorous rich and satisfying.' Daily
Telegraph 'Beautifully written, it made me laugh and I wanted to
follow in Helena's footsteps round Italy.' Kate Figes A travel book
with a difference.' Coventry Evening Telegraph An ideal stocking
filler.' Evening Standard (Glasgow) Brilliant.' BBC Radio Oxford
Shabina Akhtar I defy anyone not to enjoy it.' Harrow Observer In
this exceptional travel book, Helena Frith Powell travels through
Italy with her father to discover the Italian family she never knew
about. In a rare twist of fate, Helena Frith Powell grew up in Newbury
as a shy girl, oblivious of her extrovert Italian family. But, at the
age of 14, she was suddenly rudely awakened to the truth, when her
real father wrote to her and invited her to come to Italy. Her
Italian-style adolescence is guided by her Lothario father, her lying
aunt and her doting grandmother. While writing this memoir fourteen
years later, she reestablishes contact with her father, who ran out of
her wedding, and finally finds their common ground. In this funny,
moving and entertaining journey to the places she visited with her
father, Helena combines descriptions of Italy, its food, fashion,
culture and people to get to grips with a foreign culture that is
genetically her own.
