Fragment Of Dreams

Phillipa Fioretti

Hachette

Otago Daily Times, June 25th 2011

Although Phillipa Fioretti’s novel Fragment of Dreams falls squarely into the category of ‘chic-lit’ ­ a genre for which I have limited patience ­ it is a cut above most of its fellows.

Having escaped a miserable relationship and potential financial ruin, Lily Trevennen is preparing to start a new life in Italy with William Isyanov, an antiquities expert she met in Fioretti’s previous novel The Book of Love’. Then her sister Poppy discovers a long-lost paternal uncle and they decide to pay him a visit, hoping to learn more about their family history.

While at his house they meet a dashing young cousin, Adam, and William recognises a potentially valuable fragment of Italian marble-work in the garden. So when the stone is stolen on the same day William leaves for Rome, he immediately becomes the prime suspect.

Left behind in London, Lily is begins to question how well she knows him and whether he really loves her, while William is determined not to drag her into his troubles and believes she has turned to her newly-found cousin for comfort. Will their relationship survive? Can they find the missing fragment and clear William’s name? And what is the secret that led to her uncle’s estrangement from her parents?

These questions are solved in a rollicking adventure, spiced with danger, peppered with details of Australian and Italian life that lend three-dimensionality without becoming boring or banal, and refreshingly free of gratuitous sex. It even contains a recipe for Lily’s famous Lemon Vanilla Marmalade. If you are looking for a good light read, Fragment of Dreams may be the perfect antidote to a cold Dunedin winter.