Catherine Banner's first adult novel, after her Last Descendants YA trilogy, is a magically irresistible family saga about four generations of the Esposito family and their café, the House at the Edge of Night, on the small fictional Sicilian island of Castellamare.
In the years before World War I, Amadeo Esposito, a foundling from Florence, has transcended his circumstances and become a physician. He arrives in Castellamare with a red leather notebook in which he records the folk tales the islanders recount. Among his first storytellers is the beautiful schoolteacher Pina Vella, who tells him how Sant'Agata, Castellamare's patron saint, saved the island from a plague of sorrows.
Amadeo and Pina soon marry. Their son is born on the same night that the wife of il conte, Castellemare's titled nobleman, gives birth to a boy, a child who is soon rumored to be Amadeo's, too. Disgraced, Amadeo loses his position as the island physician. To support their growing family, Amadeo and Pina open their café. Three subsequent generations of Espositos continue operating the business, and all the while, they gather the locals at the café to talk and gossip, through loves and betrayals, marriages and estrangements, friendships, grudges, rivalries and the moments of unexpected grace.
This wonderful novel offers much to savor. Banner's island setting is especially well done--a rich and fabulous creation, full of texture and detail. Emotions are deeply felt, consequential and operatic in this small place. All of the people here have lives that matter because they live them fully, and readers are lucky for it. --Jeanette Zwart, freelance writer and reviewer