Lamprell, Mark. One Summer Day in Rome. New York: Flatiron Books, 2017. 256p. ISBN 978-1-250-10553-0. $24.99. Fiction
Nineteen-year-old Alice, despite her exceptional flair for color, has always felt inferior to her brilliant family. When her fine arts professor tells her she needs to do something with voosh, she heads to Rome to reinvent herself. In London, Lizzie and her sister-in-law, recently widowed Constance, decide to go to the Eternal City to spread the ashes of their beloved brother and husband. Meanwhile, wealthy, forty-something entrepreneurs Alec and Meg plan to be in Rome for just a day. Disgruntled with each other after 20 years of marriage, they embark on what Meg (to her husband's irritation) calls "a mission" to find the source of a tile, something that will, over the course of a wild day, bind all three couples together. Narrated by a Roman genius loci, specifically the tutelary spirit of love, Lamprell's second solo effort (after The Full Ridiculous; he and his wife, Klay, also cowrite YA novels) is both a delightful tour of Roman sites, both hidden and well known, and a breezy summer romance that follows the escapades of three couples representing different aspects of love. While the narrator's intrusions and some abrupt shifts in point of view are startling, by the satisfying conclusion, all is also forgiven. VERDICT For romance fans of all ages with special appeal to those who devour the Italian romances of Elizabeth Adler.