Catherine Raynes: Marry Me in Italy, No One Will Know

Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pelegrino  

A dream wedding in Italy? It's the chance of a lifetime! Skye has been with Tim forever and the last thing she's thinking about is saying 'I do'. It's Tim that enters the dream wedding competition - he's longing to win an all-expenses-paid trip to romantic Montenello. An escape to a beautiful Italian hill town might be just what they need to find love again...

Ana definitely isn't interested in getting married - she doesn't need a man to make her happy. But when she loses her job at a glossy food magazine, she jumps at the chance of a new life, renovating a crumbling Italian farmhouse. Her handsome (and very distracting) neighbour definitely isn't part of the plan. One thing's for sure, this summer has surprises in store!  

  

No One Will Know by Rose Carlyle  

Eve Sylvester is young and broke and needs a job fast. After years of foster homes, backpacking and a sailing trip across the Pacific Ocean, she has lost contact with friends and family. She is alone, desperate-and pregnant. Then she meets Julia and Christopher Hygate, a charming and glamorous couple, who seem to have the perfect life: loads of money and a breathtakingly beautiful mansion on a remote Tasmanian island. They make her a lucrative offer. Eve can move into their empty summerhouse and take up a very easy job.

Eve thinks she's fallen on her feet-she has found a home, and her child will grow up in the aptly named Paradise Bay. But some things about the job don't add up. Why must Eve stay out of sight? Why have the Hygates employed an ex-con to run their yacht-charter business? And what about the mysterious boats sailing in and out of the Hygates' private marina? Has Eve made a deal with the devil? It's too late to ask questions. Eve is already in far too deep. Set against the stunning backdrop of a windswept island and its mysterious lighthouse, No One Will Know is a propulsive, seductive novel of suspense that reveals the terrible consequences of greed, staggering lies and fatal mistakes. 

  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from Newstalk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Catherine Rains is with us now to talk books, and Catherine,
You've got a couple of New Zealand authors for us
this morning. Good morning, good morning, how are you good?
Thank you? A new book by Nikki Pellegrino, who I
know has many many fans she does, and this.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Is actually her fifteenth novel, and her books are often
said in Italy because it's a place that is familiar
to her from her childhood. And in this one, there's
two characters, Sky and Anna, and they seem like they
actually have nothing in common. So Sky's a cake maker
in the Cotswolds with a young family and is this
very successful editor of a best selling food magazine called

(00:49):
Colinaire and her whole life and her world is reflected
in this magazine when all of a sudden they decide
to close the doors of it, and she has no
idea what to do next, and for both of them,
for both characters, for Anna and Sky, all of a
sudden that they're world's changed, and Sky's pulled into this
all expenses paid Italian wedding competition with her partner Tim,

(01:12):
but he's actually fraudulently entered them in it, and actually
she's not really quite sure terribly if she wants to
marry him anymore after many years. And so they both
start on this path which ends up taking them to
the Italy and this beautiful town of Montanello. And so
you get these beautiful descriptions of the Italian countryside and
of course the mouth water and food and these fabulous

(01:33):
residents that you meet there. There's an older man who
you would just love to pull up and a chair
and a coffee in the glorious sunshine and the piazzo
and solve all your problems with And it's yeah, the
novel's perfect escapism really for an afternoon read. And yeah,
I love that invoking of the Italian countryside.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, she does that so well. It sounds like if
you've if you've enjoyed Niki Pellagrano's Box in the past,
this is going to very much the tick the box,
I think, so Okay. Rose Carlile, she released her first
novel was called The Girl in the Mirror, which was
just very and she's back with her second novel.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Actually this is her third one. What is a third
no no no, sorry, no, no, this is her second one. Sorry, no,
my mistake.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
No, she's been busier than I thought she had been.
Carefun check them out.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
No, but this storyline in here is is quite twisted
and a little bit unhinged and has this very weird
and unguessable plot, and the characters are completely unlikable and
there's lots of flair and over the top event so
you do have to suspend a little bit of disbeliefs
when you're reading it, because this wouldn't quite are not

(02:43):
sure play out life. But the story is based around Eve,
who finds herself alone and pregnant after tragedy strikes with
the death of her boyfriend. And she's introduced to this couple,
the Highgates, and they're very wealthy, and they make her
an offer effectively that she can't refuse. And she's really
desperate because she'd been sailing the Pacific for six months
and as I said, she's found herself pregnant and alone

(03:05):
and penniless, and his wealthy parents don't want anything to
do with her or their grandchild. So she's really desperate
in naivety, and this couple look like the perfect and
she agrees to move to this remote island hidden away
in Tasmania and a sworn to secrecy and can't tell
anybody where she's gone. And so you get this backdrop

(03:27):
of this very creepy remote island and the stream of
sequence and wealth like you wouldn't believe. And so a
real novel of suspense and if I tell you too
much more destroyed you can't the storyline. But yeah, lots
of consequences agreed and lies and facial mistakes and yeah,
like I said, a little bit unhinged and quite invisible,

(03:48):
but yeah, it's very well put together.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
I think Rhodes creates writes books that would make I
can sort of see them as fantastic TV series or movies.
And I'm really pleased to see that she's talking about
sailing again because I know and I'm pretty sure I
remember from interviewing her Catherine, that she's done a lot
to sailing and sailed I think with her family from
Thailand to South Africa or something, and it's done a
bit in the seven typic Guidance, and she does capture

(04:13):
that feeling of being in the middle of nowhere on
a boat very very well.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yeah, she does that isolation in the story. Yeah, it
makes a lot of sense if you've been out in
the middle of nowhere on a boat. She catches that
isolation extremely well. Yeah you sense this, and yeah, that's exactly,
very well done.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, exactly nicely said. Thank you so much, Catherine. The
two books that Catherine spoke about today Marry Me in
Italy by Nicki Palagrino and No One Will Know by
Rose Carlyle.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News talks ' B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.