Book Review: The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza

Title: The Sicilian Inheritance

Author: Jo Piazza

Genre: Mystery, historical & crime fiction

Pages: 384

My rating: 3.5/5

Review:

The Sicilian Inheritance, written by Jo Piazza, is one intricate web of a story that includes historical fiction, mystery, and the betterment of women all wrapped into one intriguing novel. On a deeper level, the novel deals with knotty origins of family and individual resilience against the stunning landscape of rural Sicily.

The story centers around Sara Marsala, a Philadelphia chef whose life has unraveled: her restaurant has gone under, her marriage is over, and she's lost custody of her daughter. When her great-aunt Rosie dies, she wills Sara a letter instructing her to travel to Sicily to scatter her ashes and claim a plot of land deeded to the family well more than a century ago. The catch? Dark was the land, for it held secrets, and Sara's quest to reclaim it quickly proved dangerous.

The novel veers between modern-day Sara in Sicily and her flashbacks to her great-grandmother Serafina Forte in early 20th-century Sicily. Serafina's story depicts a world of oppression under a strongly patriarchal system; the same kind of patriarchal systems Sara struggles with even in her modern life. Through this dual narrative, Piazza brings into focus the theme of female strength and survival, along with the ways in which, no matter the era, the female experience is shaped by expectations and limitations that are societal in nature.

Piazza excels at painting the Sicilian setting with such vivid, atmosphere-conveying detail that plunges readers into raw beauty underlined by tension on this island. At almost the character level, the landscapes and historic legacies of Sicily play a main role in both Sara's and Serafina's stories.

The more Sara digs into her family's past, the more she becomes entrenched with unsavory characters who will stop at nothing to keep secrets buried. Her passport is stolen, and she gets kidnapped by local thugs over attempts to claim the land. These twists of suspense make the novel more than a simple family drama-really a page-turner.

Perhaps the most salient point of the book is the women who, through Sara and Serafina, are both featured in the display of female "Furbezza" or devious intelligence that helped them to outlive the heavy odds using wit, a lot of determinations to their advantage, securing their fate.

Yet, there are moments of levity to be had within the book as well, for Piazza counterpoints the darkness in the story with the warmth of love within a family, the beauty of Sicilian traditions, and the self-discovery process of the protagonist.

Overall, The Sicilian Inheritance is a tragically vivid mystery of family and self-empowerment. With its richly set historical context and suspenseful narrative, this is definitely recommended for anyone who loves stories about women taking back their identity and finding secrets buried for so long. Piazza gives a touching and fun novel that resonates on so many levels: emotional, historical, and suspenseful.