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Swallows And Ice Cream
A short story kindle literary fiction book that is a cross between romantic suspense and mystery. Within this book you will be getting a Florence guide book too as the story is set in Tuscany Italy. So if you're looking for books that also included Tuscany & Italian fiction then Swallows and Ice Cream will be a great book for you to read. Swallows And Ice Cream a Literary Fiction short story is a raunchy book and will cover, mystery, romance, suspense, torment and desire.
Steve, a nineteen-year-old English boy, lives and works in one of the small Tuscan villages that surround Florence. He is a lost soul, haunted by the memory of his beloved Katherine, whom he has left behind in England. He lives in a cluttered single room high up in Fausto Pacelli’s three-storey house; the exorbitant rent as always in arrears.
Steve works for Tino Fabiano, owner of an ice cream shop. His handsome good looks are good for business, women of all ages seem attracted to the boy. Steve is befriended by Luca, who runs his uncle’s café, and is responsible for most of the food Steve eats, and Maria; a stunning beauty who has attached herself to the English boy.
Steve is a boy lost in confusion, riddled with guilt that he cannot undo. Katherine comes to him more and more in nightmares; unable to escape her, she now haunts his days as well as his nights. Everything is catching up with Steve; sooner or later, he will have to confront his bitter past.
Steve, a nineteen-year-old English boy, lives and works in one of the small Tuscan villages that surround Florence. He is a lost soul, haunted by the memory of his beloved Katherine, whom he has left behind in England. He lives in a cluttered single room high up in Fausto Pacelli’s three-storey house; the exorbitant rent as always in arrears.
Steve works for Tino Fabiano, owner of an ice cream shop. His handsome good looks are good for business, women of all ages seem attracted to the boy. Steve is befriended by Luca, who runs his uncle’s café, and is responsible for most of the food Steve eats, and Maria; a stunning beauty who has attached herself to the English boy.
Steve is a boy lost in confusion, riddled with guilt that he cannot undo. Katherine comes to him more and more in nightmares; unable to escape her, she now haunts his days as well as his nights. Everything is catching up with Steve; sooner or later, he will have to confront his bitter past.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
81 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 30, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 19, 2013
A LOST SOUL
Steve is nineteen, living in a shabby room in Fausto Pacelli's house. Steve is always behind with the rent, but Fausto is ever patient with this quiet and sad English boy. Steve works for Tino Fabiano selling ice cream. Steve who attracts plenty of female attention is good for Tino's business. Steve has made a few friends, Luca who works in his uncles cafe, and then there's the beautiful Maria.
But Steve is far from happy, he's a lost soul, riddled with guilt over his beloved Katherine. He drinks too much brandy, uses Maria for sexual gratification, she's willing. But it's just one more thing to feel guilty about, but not enough to stop.
Katherine haunts his sleep, and during the day she is never far from his mind.
This is a fairly quick read, but it is very well written. The descriptions of the Tuscan countryside is vivid and easy to visualise. The characters are realistic and believable, Steve seems much older than his nineteen years. His guilt over Katherine, was something I wasn't entirely convinced about. It seemed to me that his current state of mind was due more to the discoveries he had made about himself. His path in life seems self destructive and filled with self pity.
When the author asked me to review this, he described it as a romance. But this is not IMO in any way romantic. This is certainly not a feel good read. I wanted to hug Steve and shake him by turn. He had my sympathy one minute, but the next would infuriate me.
ARC provided by the author.
Steve is nineteen, living in a shabby room in Fausto Pacelli's house. Steve is always behind with the rent, but Fausto is ever patient with this quiet and sad English boy. Steve works for Tino Fabiano selling ice cream. Steve who attracts plenty of female attention is good for Tino's business. Steve has made a few friends, Luca who works in his uncles cafe, and then there's the beautiful Maria.
But Steve is far from happy, he's a lost soul, riddled with guilt over his beloved Katherine. He drinks too much brandy, uses Maria for sexual gratification, she's willing. But it's just one more thing to feel guilty about, but not enough to stop.
Katherine haunts his sleep, and during the day she is never far from his mind.
This is a fairly quick read, but it is very well written. The descriptions of the Tuscan countryside is vivid and easy to visualise. The characters are realistic and believable, Steve seems much older than his nineteen years. His guilt over Katherine, was something I wasn't entirely convinced about. It seemed to me that his current state of mind was due more to the discoveries he had made about himself. His path in life seems self destructive and filled with self pity.
When the author asked me to review this, he described it as a romance. But this is not IMO in any way romantic. This is certainly not a feel good read. I wanted to hug Steve and shake him by turn. He had my sympathy one minute, but the next would infuriate me.
ARC provided by the author.
January 7, 2015
Originally posted to Author Unpublished.
I put off this review for a long time. Swallows and Ice Cream was one of those stories that I occasionally get handed directly from the author or publisher, where on paper, it sounds good. As I started reading, however, I quickly lost interest. I tried. I really did. I read, I set it aside, I’d go back and read some more, I’d set it aside again… but eventually I had to admit after months of waffling over a review that sometimes you just have to set a book down. It’s not an egregiously long book either, only 81 pages… a short story, but I couldn’t finish it.
Now, I didn’t get far into the story—not even half way—so attempting to discuss the plot or the characters is nearly impossible. I didn’t get far enough in to dissect those aspects of the book. What I can tell you is that I got the impression that the story itself wasn’t bad, just a bit depressing. The book opens with Steve, a teen who spends the first few pages of the book lamenting over a lost love and trying to avoid a bottle of brandy. He hasn’t paid his rent in awhile, and my general impression of him was that he was a pretty sad sop. The opening of the story was slow and depressing, and to be honest, didn’t drag me in. Had that been the only problem, I probably would have kept reading.
Unfortunately, the narrative style wasn’t to my taste, and the editing was sadly lacking. In the first five pages of the story alone I spotted numerous punctuation errors and awkwardly worded sentences. The sentence structure was repetitive and clipped—stiff. It was by far not the worst editing I’ve seen in an independently published book, but it should have been cleaned up by an editor before publishing. Between the poor editing, the sloppy sentence structure, and the depressing, slow beginning… I just couldn’t bring myself to read any more.
Do I think others would like it? Probably. I’m not huge on the short story genre as a whole, and I’m not a fan of mopey depressing stories. Understand that I’m at heart, a romance reader (which is what I was told this story was). I work to help copyedit stories like this for authors… so getting past technical errors can sometimes be hard. I think someone with a mind less trained to pick up errors, and someone who enjoys more literary work may appreciate this story more than I did. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t the right audience for it.
I put off this review for a long time. Swallows and Ice Cream was one of those stories that I occasionally get handed directly from the author or publisher, where on paper, it sounds good. As I started reading, however, I quickly lost interest. I tried. I really did. I read, I set it aside, I’d go back and read some more, I’d set it aside again… but eventually I had to admit after months of waffling over a review that sometimes you just have to set a book down. It’s not an egregiously long book either, only 81 pages… a short story, but I couldn’t finish it.
Now, I didn’t get far into the story—not even half way—so attempting to discuss the plot or the characters is nearly impossible. I didn’t get far enough in to dissect those aspects of the book. What I can tell you is that I got the impression that the story itself wasn’t bad, just a bit depressing. The book opens with Steve, a teen who spends the first few pages of the book lamenting over a lost love and trying to avoid a bottle of brandy. He hasn’t paid his rent in awhile, and my general impression of him was that he was a pretty sad sop. The opening of the story was slow and depressing, and to be honest, didn’t drag me in. Had that been the only problem, I probably would have kept reading.
Unfortunately, the narrative style wasn’t to my taste, and the editing was sadly lacking. In the first five pages of the story alone I spotted numerous punctuation errors and awkwardly worded sentences. The sentence structure was repetitive and clipped—stiff. It was by far not the worst editing I’ve seen in an independently published book, but it should have been cleaned up by an editor before publishing. Between the poor editing, the sloppy sentence structure, and the depressing, slow beginning… I just couldn’t bring myself to read any more.
Do I think others would like it? Probably. I’m not huge on the short story genre as a whole, and I’m not a fan of mopey depressing stories. Understand that I’m at heart, a romance reader (which is what I was told this story was). I work to help copyedit stories like this for authors… so getting past technical errors can sometimes be hard. I think someone with a mind less trained to pick up errors, and someone who enjoys more literary work may appreciate this story more than I did. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t the right audience for it.
August 6, 2013
Swallows and Icecream is a tragic, ethereal story about a young man who blames himself for a woman's death - even though it he could hardly have changed anything. Needless to say, he was more than a little in love with her. The story follows Steve, as he struggles to come to terms with his nightmares. Unfortunately for Steve, he is drowning in self-pity and resorting to the bottle.
Unable to keep his wages in his pocket for more than a night, he is constantly in debt to those around him - his landlord who needs the money but who likes Steve and reasons that at least this tenant is not as bad as the ones before him. His friend, Lucas, is resigned to bailing Steve out of monetary and physically confronting situation - because Steve is lovable and extraordinarily beautiful. This is fortunate for him, because he enjoys the "patronage" of the Contessa and the favours of his current girlfriend, Maria, who he treats very badly.
His beauty is also fortuitous in that many people are attracted to the ice cream shop where he works and this pleases his boss, so much so that he saves Steve's rent money from his wages and gives it to his landlord, knowing how feckless Steve is.
Although I liked the character of Steve, I wish he had a little more back-bone. Sometimes I wanted to shake him into reality. His mourning for Katherine, his soul-mate, is his downfall - which is a pity because...
From the beginning, a thread of doom runs through this well-written book. The dialogue is surreal, the imagery exquisite. I will definitely read more from this outstanding author.
July 30, 2013
I do not even know what to say about this short book. I was annoyed the entire book and had to struggle to finish the book and I cannot for the life of me figure out what I just tried to read. It was short but, I think the ending made the entire book horrible. Steve has nightmares, a ton of self-pity and would rather down a bottle of alcohol then to pay his rent. Steve uses everyone that he knows and many only like him because he is "beautiful". I think the reason I did not like this book is because I hated Steve. Just absolutely not the book for me.
June 17, 2013
A short story containing some delightful descriptive passages. It is a poignant story set in Italy about a troubled young man struggling to come to terms with loss. I enjoyed reading this but found it very sad.
July 5, 2013
While I was reading this somewhat innocuous story about a young man working in Italy and in a ice cream store, I just knew there was going to be something terrible in his history. So there was, but not nearly as bad as I though it would be, but sad nonetheless. Well written novella.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews