Bella Toscana by Nanette Littlestone

I am a sucker for covers and this one just drew me in. The other attraction was the setting and background. Chocolate, baking, and to top it all Tuscany. Could one ask for more. You then add in doses of romance a bit of time travel and you have a lovely story.

Toscana is the owner of a shop selling brownies. Not just brownies. These seem to be artisanal brownies. With an Italian heritage and going to Tuscany after decades she decides to try her hand at the export business of bringing brownies to Italy - a country that does not know what brownies are.
Her task is straightforward. Attend a Chocolate Festival, do her best to sell her product to three leading chocolatiers, visit her uncle and aunt and cousins and then return to Jackson her husband who at the last minute cannot join her on the trip.

What she didnt account for was meeting Flynn, a Professor of History in Rome, being instantly attracted to him and to top it all, having visions and dreams of a very disturbing nature - being part of ancient Rome involving Vestals, Roman soldiers, a very torrid love affair all set in ancient Rome.

The visions and going back in time are very matter of fact but the falling in love part was anything but!      Descriptive of both Tuscany, the chocolate and baking fields which formed the main part of the story and then returning to America to Toscana's life before Flynn was well told.

Whether it is rebirth or a soul's eternal travels this is a good way of handling some people's experience of a previous life.  Trying to make an explanation of this is not easy but this book handled it very well.


Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of BooksGoSocial.