As Long as It Takes
A Novel
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Set in a seaside town in Italy, As Long as It Takes is a charming summer romance about finding your roots and letting love blossom.
Love isn’t exactly a priority for Lora Brooks. After all, her last break-up made it perfectly clear that she can’t rely on anyone but herself. That’s why Lora’s number one focus is her research, where she’s hard at work debunking Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. But when she’s offered a prestigious post-doctoral position in Zurich—one whose funding hinges on her having European citizenship—everything changes.
Hoping to claim citizenship through her birth father, Lora and her best friend travel to the quaint Italian town where he was born. She knows little about her father (and intends to keep it that way) but nothing, not even the ghosts of her past, will stand between Lora and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Except, perhaps, Italian bureaucracy. And an outdated filing system. And Andrea, the handsome—and slightly anxious—mayor.
Andrea’s plate may be more than full, but in between trying to increase tourism, wrangling quirky business-owners, and debating whether to run for a second term, he somehow finds the time to show Lora what it really means to live, and perhaps love, like a local. Lora is destined for a future hundreds of miles away and Andrea’s parents are pushing him to return to his fast-paced life in New York, but will they discover that their most basic need is actually just…each other?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The tension between seeking independence and longing for connection animates this smart summer romance from Francis (The Summer You Were Mine). Psychology researcher Lora Brooks is thrilled to be accepted into a postdoctoral program in Zurich, but in order to receive funding, she must prove E.U. citizenship. So she travels to Baia Santa, Italy, her estranged father's birthplace, hoping to gain citizenship under the Italian legal principle of jure sanguinis (or "right of blood"). Fiercely self-reliant, Lora never knew her father and has been fending for herself since her American mother's death while Lora was still a teenager. These experiences drive her research into debunking Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which, she argues, do not need to be met in sequence to achieve fulfilment. ("We need a model that deemphasizes things like family environment and community and prioritizes personal volition and skill.") Baia Santa's handsome, community oriented mayor, Andrea Garibaldi, disagrees. After burning out in finance, he's thrilled to be giving back—and, after Lora comes to him for help, he's determined to show her the joys of small town living. The beautiful Italian coastal setting provides a stunning backdrop to their opposites attract romance. Lora's stubbornness and need to be right becomes frustrating at times, but Andrea strikes the right balance of patience and care. Readers will swoon.
