Rome Sweet
Home.
Was she ready to return?
She could have had him wrapped around her finger…
If he didn’t have a ring wrapped around his.
Reader Reviews
“The text flows fast and sure and it’s a real page turner. The chapters are well structured and just the right length to keep the story moving. Also, the alternating narrator structure might have been an issue and instead it works very smoothly. The two “voices” are so distinct and all the characters are well defined. The book is also funny. It has some very nice comic moments to it.
I laughed out loud more than once, and that’s rare.”
Angela
Literature Professor
“Steven, I truly love your writing style and you had me laughing more than once and I think I even shed a few tears … my kind of book!
I especially loved the format of going back and forth between the characters. It leaves the reader in suspense and yet allows them to understand the individual perceptions of the same incident, making them wonder how they might react in the same scenario. I just loved the overall message of the power of following one’s heart … that little voice, that if we listen, guides us to where we should be.”
Michelle
Avid Reader
“Best book I’ve read in a long time! My husband and I have both finished the book. It made us laugh and cry. The writer had a beautiful ability to paint a picture that illuminated the strong emotions. Very well done!”
Donna
Amazon Reader
Back Cover Blurb
Laura, a feisty Italian language tutor, loves to glam with glitterati, but isn’t sure if returning to Rome is the best way to avoid bumping into a past she’d sooner avoid. After she lands, her student, Alex, asks for her help to find a missing family will. When the will-quest finds them both in Rome, the walls of professionalism start to crumble as the battle to deny their feelings for each other begins. Even though Alex is cute in a boyish kind of way, the idea of dating her flannel-obsessed, younger student never crossed her mind until now.
Just as Alex starts to wonder if Laura would consider a kid who lives with his parents and has zero Instagram followers, his attending and overly protective mother plots against his amorous intentions. She wouldn’t dare let her son date an older woman. Especially an Italian!
For Laura, the dolce vita has turned sour
A shameful past has made the dolce vita of Rome as bitter as a bad espresso. Will she face her demons? Or is younger man the sweetener she needs?
Meet the author:
Steven Bale
Before I could walk, the dust of the prairies had powered my diaper more than talcum. There’s no doubt, you can take the boy out of the prairie, but you can’t take the prairie out of the boy.It didn’t take long for my parents to give up on minus thirty degrees Celsius and shoveling snow to get to the toaster. So they packed us up, threw away the cat…sorry…”lost” the cat and drove our GMC Suburban over the Rockies, where it came to a sputtering death on Vancouver Island.
Ever since, I’ve been trying to find my way back to a place that can never been found.
Until I met my wife.
She was petite, dark and beautiful, the perfect exotic beauty to carry me away from my severe case of “islanditis.” There was only one problem: I looked like a five year old, and my parents thought I was two.
Anyway, I eventually managed to convince mum and dad that I could tie my shoelaces and get married all by myself.
As cheesy as it sounds, life with my wife has become my muse to write. Luckily, she’s more gorgonzola than cheddar.
Did I just compare my wife to cheese? Oh boy. I’m gonna pay for that one.
Why I wrote a romance novel
I’ve always said that my wife and I were a couple of diversity before diversity was cool. Marrying an older Italian woman has inspired me to write our story and the difficulties we faced confronting our cultural and age differences. Besides, I didn’t have much choice. She told me to.
Even though diversity has become more of a political slogan these days, for us, it posed a great deal of challenges that helped us grow as individuals and as a couple. I remember when we first started dating. Me: a young, soapy faced “man” of twenty-something. Her: a gorgeous Roman sophisticate with sun-kissed skin and a “what are you doing with that guy?” look about her. Hand-in-hand. We strolled into a store together. When I went to pay, the cashier asked me: “So? Who’s paying? You or your mom?”
This is our story.
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