Italy and Forever by Leonie Mack

This is the fourth, and sadly, the final book in the Adventure Weddings series (also known as the Wedding Planners series) which features characters who work at two companies that undertake an unusual merger. When an adventure travel company combines with a wedding planning company, the service that the new company offers is weddings set in unusual destinations, often with some adventure sports mixed into the wedding plan.

Throughout the series, we have heard about the employees of the new company and seen them meet their loves. Ginny is happy for her loved up friends, but she has not been as lucky. As a result, she has decided that she isn't going to try anymore and she is going on a dating band. After all she has a wedding to organise, all while doing double duty as bridesmaid!

The wedding is for mountain climber Andreas and her friend and colleague Sophie who we met in the first book in the series. They are getting married in Northern Italy, an area of extreme mountainous beauty and crystal-clear lakes. The biggest headache that Ginny has is that she needs a wedding photographer and she has run out of options.

Rhys is a photographer but not usually of weddings. He loves taking photos in extreme situations and nature photos but not of people. Rhys prefers to work alone, and comes across as being very grumpy, and he exasperates Ginny quite regularly. When he finally agrees to do the job, he knows that it is going to be very challenging. What Ginny doesn't know is that Rhys had an accident years before which has left him with a condition which certainly explains why he is the way he is!

What Ginny doesn't expect is for her constant annoyance with Rhys to transform into a powerful attraction which is hard to resist. After all, she is on a dating ban, and he is all sorts of wrong for her. Not only is he always grumpy, he is also a good deal older than her. 

As for Rhys, he was very hurt when his last serious relationship ended. He is not averse to the idea of a flirtation with Ginny but he has plans that he hasn't shared with anyone, so there is no future in it. They are wrong for each other on so many levels, and yet, they work.

Now, Ginny is juggling keeping her growing attachment to Rhys a secret, weathering the unusual wedding traditions that the groom's friends seem to be insisting must be part of the wedding, and hope that the groom can resist the call of the nearby climbable mountains. It's a lot!

Given that it is the last book in the series, we do get to see all of the characters we came to love, and the unusual Italian settings that are so important to this series. 

I have now read twelve books by Leonie Mack and I look forward to each new one as it comes up. I love that she writes about more unusual settings, such as this area of Italy and that she often includes outdoor activities like the mountain climbing. I am never actually going to go mountain climbing but I do enjoy reading about it! Now that this series is done, I am excited to see what Leonie Mack comes up with next!  If you love books with great settings, humour, and good characters, please give Leonie Mack a go!

Here are my reviews of the other books in this series (although it doesn't look like I reviewed the third book. Whoops!)

An Italian Wedding Adventure

A Winter Wedding Adventure

An Italian Island Love Story

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews and also counts for Aussie Author August. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy.

Rating 4/5

A Winter Wedding Adventure by Leonie Mack

 

I am a big fan of Leonie Mack's writing, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, An Italian Wedding Adventure (my review). I always knew that I was going to be keen to read this follow up book. And here's a newsflash....I'm going to read the next book in the series too.

We met Kira in the previous book when she was a co-worker and friend (occasionally with benefits) with Andreas. She has always loved the adventure part of her job, the rock climbing, the skiing and more. What she doesn't love is that her employer has now merged with a wedding planning company. She can't think of anything worse than weddings.

This is especially true when she is assigned to babysit the bride's best friend and guest of honour. Mattia is an Italian opera singer who has sensory issues and a tendency towards misadventure and Kira has been asked to make sure that he makes it to the wedding which is being held at the top of a snow covered mountain on New Years Eve. What could go wrong?

It turns out plenty could go wrong, from transport issues, meddling friends, to ex partners turning up at the wedding, a stressed out bride and nature having her say. Through it all, Kira fights the attraction that she feels to this man who is so different from her, so open to life and yet not overly confident whereas Kira has built walls around herself after her heart was broken years before but no one, not even those she has been closest to over the years, knows that story. 

I really enjoyed the chemistry between Kira and Mattia. He sees her beneath her blue hair and her grumpy exterior (particularly when she is hungry), and she is attentive to him and accepts his sensitivities without judgement. Given who she is, Kira takes a while to come round but when she does fall, she falls hard!

Whilst this book opens at a Christmas market in Salzburg, the events take place in the few days between Christmas and New Year's so it is festive rather than full on Christmassy. It has the trademark Leonie Mack humour and sense of adventure, and is another good read from her!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy.

Rating 4/5

An Italian Wedding Adventure by Leonie Mack

 

Sophie is a wedding planner who goes above and beyond for her clients, so if they want to have a wedding that includes climbing mountains in Italy, then she can make that happen. Given that more couples are wanting adventure/destination weddings she flippantly suggests to her boss that maybe they should join forces with an adventure company. She is still a bit shocked when her boss announces that they are merging with one. Of course it happens to be the company where her ex,  Andreas, works.

Eight years previously Sophie and Andreas had a brief but very deep relationship. On February 29th she proposed to him, but he said no, leaving a heartbroken Sophie behind to pick up the pieces. She moved on, married and then divorced, but Andreas has always had a bit of her heart.

Having to spend time in Italy scouting for the ideal wedding location, Sophie and Andreas are forced to spend time together, and they are both still very attracted to each other. Andreas avoids any kind of emotional attachment, mainly because he knows how dangerous it is when he goes climbing on some of the biggest mountains in the world, and he also knows how traumatic it is for those that are left behind when something goes wrong. He has seen it in his own world when his best friend died during a climb. 

There are times when Andreas is a bit frustrating. He is so closed off to the idea of allowing himself to even be open to have a relationship, despite the pressure he is getting from his family. 

Part of the charm of this book lies in it's setting in Northern Italy, close to the German border. Historically the border has moved many times over the centuries, with the area sometimes being German and other times Italian, and this is reflected in the language, food and characters. Coincidentally, I was watching the new Tucci in Italy series, and Stanley Tucci visited this area in one of the episodes. I love that Leonie Mack takes us to Italy, but not just Tuscany or the Amalfi coast. She takes us to the lesser visited parts of Italy and makes me wish that we were going back to visit some of these fantastic locations.

Bearing in mind that the most climbing I do is off the couch or occasionally out of the bath, the adventure stuff is not really my jam, but the idea of seeing all that gorgeous scenery overlooking the lake - that I would love. There were times that the technical terms got a bit draggy for me, but I do think it was great that they were there, and it is clear that the author has done a lot of the things that she is talking about. 

We did, however, have a location wedding. Ours was just the two of us on a beach in Vanuatu, so a little less strenous!

This is the first in a series, and we have already met some of the people who are going to feature in the future books! The next one is due to be released in September and I am already looking forward to reading it

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted by The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy.

Rating 4.5/5