Villa Mirabella

Much like his previous four novels, Pezzelli’s latest is a pleasurable, effortless read. Jason Mirabella was a young hotshot marketing genius for a medical company in L.A. until his boss persuaded him to bury the numbers of bad clinical studies for their latest money-making device. An investigation outed him, causing him to lose his job, friends, and romantic obsession—the bosses’ daughter, Amanda. Jason, with tail firmly between his legs, heads back home to Rhode Island, where his dad, sister, and brother run the family’s faltering bed and breakfast together. Giulio welcomes his son back with Italian-American open-armed gusto and puts him to work at the inn, much to his other son and daughter’s chagrin. As Jason works out his demons, he struggles to earn the trust of his siblings and to find true happiness in the town he couldn’t wait to be thousands of miles away from. The clichéd Italian-American family that eats, laughs, and loves is an omnipresent and overdone theme in Pezzelli’s work, but the feel-good story line is well thought out and well written, and warrants a spot in this summer’s beach-read bag. (June)