The Queen of the Big Time: a Novel
2 journalers for this copy...
from TLC book sale.
change status. Pulled to read for the tag game.
Small town life novel set near my hometown. I recognized the places! Nella Castelluca, the middle of five daughters of an Italian family, has to leave school and go to work in the blouse factory at age 15, after her Dad is injured in a quarry accident. She loves Renato, an older boy, who disappears with her heart after his parents die. After years of pursuing her, Franco finally gets Nella to give in a marry him. But on the eve of their wedding, Renato returns to Roseto - as a priest. Nella and Franco marry, but has she really given him all her heart?
This one will travel forward to cestmoi as a wishlist tag.
This one will travel forward to cestmoi as a wishlist tag.
Journal Entry 4 by 
NancyNova
at RABCK, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada on Sunday, March 9, 2014
NancyNova at RABCK, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada on Sunday, March 9, 2014
Released 10 yrs ago (3/10/2014 UTC) at RABCK, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada
CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:
A wishlist tag! Enjoy.
It arrived in the midst of today's blast of Winter.
Thank you for fulfilling this wish :)
Thank you for fulfilling this wish :)
It arrived in the midst of today's blast of Winter.
Thank you for fulfilling this wish :)
Thank you for fulfilling this wish :)
Thank you so much for fulfilling this wish.
Adriana Trigiani never, ever, disappoints me. Her insight into the life of a transplanted Italian family is always spot on and brings back such memories of my own childhood that although I don't live anywhere near Roseto, I can see my Nonna and my Papa in the Castelluca's.
Nella's sense of determination and her work ethic are ones that my own parents instilled in my siblings and I and my parents were both the hardest workers I've ever known.
Although Nella lives a fairly ordinary life, she lives and grows old in the same small town and doesn't live her out her wildest dreams - she lived a happy life and thankfully realised she had all she ever wanted in her own back yard.
From amazon.com
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In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in the Bari region of Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, made a mass migration to the promised land of America. They settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, and re-created their former lives in their new home–down to the very last detail of who lived next door to whom. The village’s annual celebration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel–or “the Big Time,” as the occasion is called by the young women who compete to be the pageant’s Queen–is the centerpiece of Roseto’s colorful old-world tradition.
The industrious Castellucas farm the land outside Roseto. Nella, the middle daughter of five, aspires to a genteel life “in town,” far from the rigors of farm life, which have taken a toll on her mother and forced her father to take extra work in the slate quarries to make ends meet. But Nella’s dreams of making her own fortune shift when she meets Renato Lanzara, the son of a prominent Roseto family. Renato is a worldly, handsome, devil-may-care poet who has a way with words that makes him irresistible. Their friendship ignites into a fiery romance that Nella is certain will lead to marriage. But Nella is not alone in her pursuit: every girl in town seems to want Renato. When he disappears without explanation, Nella is left with a shattered heart. Four years later, Renato’s sudden return to Roseto the night before Nella’s wedding to the steadfast Franco Zollerano leaves her and the Castelluca family shaken. For although Renato has chosen a path very different from Nella’s, they are fated to live and work in Roseto, where the past hangs over them like a brewing storm.
An epic of small-town life, etched in glorious detail in the trademark Trigiani style, The Queen of the Big Time is the story of a determined, passionate woman who can never forget her first love.
Adriana Trigiani never, ever, disappoints me. Her insight into the life of a transplanted Italian family is always spot on and brings back such memories of my own childhood that although I don't live anywhere near Roseto, I can see my Nonna and my Papa in the Castelluca's.
Nella's sense of determination and her work ethic are ones that my own parents instilled in my siblings and I and my parents were both the hardest workers I've ever known.
Although Nella lives a fairly ordinary life, she lives and grows old in the same small town and doesn't live her out her wildest dreams - she lived a happy life and thankfully realised she had all she ever wanted in her own back yard.
From amazon.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in the Bari region of Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, made a mass migration to the promised land of America. They settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, and re-created their former lives in their new home–down to the very last detail of who lived next door to whom. The village’s annual celebration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel–or “the Big Time,” as the occasion is called by the young women who compete to be the pageant’s Queen–is the centerpiece of Roseto’s colorful old-world tradition.
The industrious Castellucas farm the land outside Roseto. Nella, the middle daughter of five, aspires to a genteel life “in town,” far from the rigors of farm life, which have taken a toll on her mother and forced her father to take extra work in the slate quarries to make ends meet. But Nella’s dreams of making her own fortune shift when she meets Renato Lanzara, the son of a prominent Roseto family. Renato is a worldly, handsome, devil-may-care poet who has a way with words that makes him irresistible. Their friendship ignites into a fiery romance that Nella is certain will lead to marriage. But Nella is not alone in her pursuit: every girl in town seems to want Renato. When he disappears without explanation, Nella is left with a shattered heart. Four years later, Renato’s sudden return to Roseto the night before Nella’s wedding to the steadfast Franco Zollerano leaves her and the Castelluca family shaken. For although Renato has chosen a path very different from Nella’s, they are fated to live and work in Roseto, where the past hangs over them like a brewing storm.
An epic of small-town life, etched in glorious detail in the trademark Trigiani style, The Queen of the Big Time is the story of a determined, passionate woman who can never forget her first love.
