Julie Jacobs's story begins with the death of her great-aunt Rose--or maybe it began more than 600 years ago in medieval Siena. In the present day, Julie is directing a dress rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet at a Shakespeare summer camp, when Umberto, Rose's butler, arrives to tell her that her beloved great-aunt has died. At that moment, Julie wishes she had the power to "flip reality upside down like an hourglass, and that life was not a finite affair, but rather a perpetually recurring passage through a little hole in time." Little does she know how her wish will be fulfilled.
Umberto drives her home to Aunt Rose's, where Julie and her twin, Janice, have lived since their parents died in Tuscany when the girls were quite young. Janice has already arrived, with a calculator and a bottle of champagne; this is typical Janice, and never the twain shall meet. Julie is shy and tongue-tied, while Janice is sexy and ravenous; Janice's outfits say come hither, Julie's say get lost. Julie has always been the good girl, although Rose was careful to treat the girls equally, but when the will is read, Janice gets everything. Julie gets, in addition to a shock, an envelope with a letter, a key and a passport in the name of Giulietta Tolomei, which Umberto tells her is her real name. The letter from Rose instructs her to take the key to a bank in Siena, where her mother left something for her, something valuable. This seems to be all Julie has now, so she leaves for Italy.
At the airport, she meets Eva Maria Salimbeni, who immediately recognizes Julie/Giulietta's name, and tells her that their two families, the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis, go way back; back, in fact, to medieval Siena. The two families were always at war, and the feud was so bad they burned down each other's houses and killed each other's children. "Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Siena..." like the Montagues and Capulets. When the plane lands in Florence, Eva Maria insists on giving Julie a ride--she's being picked up by Sandro, her extremely handsome god-son.
In Siena, Juiie follows instructions and winds up with a box, a crucifix, some doodles and scribbles, a cheap paperback copy of Romeo and Juliet, and some letters and typewritten texts. No money, no valuable antique, nothing that promises to be a treasure. Disappointed and puzzled, she settles into her hotel room to read the letters and texts, and she goes back in time to the Siena of 1340, where Giulietta Tolomei is being rescued from a Salimbeni attack by Romeo Marescotti. And that is just page 77--there are over 350 more pages to spin out this compelling and intricate story of the original Romeo and Juliet, and the modern Giulietta--but where is Romeo?
The triangle of Salembeni, Tolomei and Marescotti feuds is played out in Shakespearean tragedy and modern romance, with passion, humor, intrigue (and a friar's curse for spice). As Fortier moves between present and past Siena, there are stories within stories in this Italian matryoshka doll of a novel, and removing the layers is sheer delight as Julie uncovers the story of her parents, of doomed lovers and of her own heart. --Marilyn Dahl
Shelf Talker: A multilayered novel about the real Romeo and Juliet of 14th-century Siena, and a modern-day Juliet in search of her legacy.