When in Rome
A Novel
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From nationally bestselling, award-winning author Liam Callanan, the story of an opportunity to start over at midlife, a chance to save a struggling convent in the Eternal City, and the dramatic re-emergence of an old flame . . .
Claire, fifty-two, desperately desires a fresh start. After decades as a real estate broker specializing in old religious properties, she’s looking for something new. And then, on the eve of her thirtieth college reunion, a call comes from Rome.
It’s from a struggling convent facing a precipitous end, and Claire isn’t so sure she can help out. But once in Rome, she finds a group of funny, fearless nuns in a gorgeous, if crumbling, villa, a city whose colors deepen as she spends miles running its streets, and above all, a chance to reflect. It leads her unexpectedly to wonder: maybe she should stay in Rome. In the convent. Forever.
Her college roommate and business partner has thoughts. So does Claire’s daughter. And so does Marcus, a once-buzzy actor, who’s still as devastatingly handsome as he was when he first fell for Claire at eighteen. He’s come and gone from Claire’s life since college but reappears in Rome just as she’s about to decide what’s next.
A look at faith, in oneself as much as a higher power, and love, romantic and familial, lost and found, this is the thoroughly charming story of one woman who sets out to rewrite her past and future, only to be surprised by the plot twists life takes . . . when in Rome.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Callanan (Paris by the Book) builds a charming story from a woman's midlife crisis. Claire Murphy, 52, has made a career helping religious institutions sell buildings they can no longer afford. In 2019, she travels to Rome, where her clients, the American Sisters of Saint Gertrude, are debating whether to sell their convent. Claire, who lost her mother as a young girl and was raised by nuns in Milwaukee, had planned to become a nun herself after finishing Yale, but she changed her plans after getting pregnant from a one-night stand and having a daughter, Dorothy. Now, surrounded at the peaceful Rome convent by the vibrant Gertrudans, she again considers joining. In a parallel narrative, Claire's college friend Marcus Sardeson travels to Rome, intending to propose to Claire, having spent decades as a surrogate father figure to Dorothy. As Marcus builds up his nerve, he teams with Dorothy, now age 29, and Claire's business partner to stop Claire from becoming a nun. Despite a few plot contrivances—a key passed down by the nuns "in case of emergency" comes in handy during a crisis—Callanan keeps things moving with the question of the convent's fate hanging over the characters, and carefully outlines Claire's complicated feelings about her relationships and vocation. This is a delight.
