The Unraveling of Julia
Julia Pritzger was adopted. She was happily married and living in Philadelphia with her husband, Mike. Walking home from dinner, they were suddenly accosted by a man in a blue hoodie. He jumped out and seemed to be trying to snatch Julia’s designer bag. Instead, he seemed to become entangled with Julia. In an attempt to protect Julia, Mike jumped between her and the thief. Armed with a deadly knife, he brutally stabs and fatally wounds Mike. At 32, he was cut down. At 32, she became a widow. She was no stranger to tragedy. Her mom passed away on her tenth birthday. Once again, she was traumatized. Mike had filled all the empty spaces in her life, and now he was gone and the loneliness was back. Grief stricken and frightened, Julia retreated into herself. She didn’t leave her apartment, and finally, after some time had passed, she simply threw herself back into work. She had her own small website business.
Then, out of the blue, like Cinderella, she is contacted by a lawyer who tells her that she has inherited a large fortune and an estate, from an elderly woman named Emilia Rossi. She explains to Massimiliano Lombardi, from Milan, Italy, that she did not believe that either he or the inheritance was legitimate. She did not know the late Emilia Rossi. She believed it was a scam. Soon, circumstances convinced her otherwise. She resolves to take care of everything by telephone and the internet and not to go to Italy.
Julia makes a discovery. On the day Mike was murdered, her horoscope practically predicted it, but she had not read it and had not been cautious. She is invested in astrology, and when she reads another horoscope that tells her that her life is about to change, she begins to think that perhaps she should fly to Italy to find out more about the will and the person that bequeathed her such a fortune. Because she has been homebound since Mike’s death, fearful of going out and depressed, she calls her friend Courtney to discuss it. She gives her some much needed support and encouragement. She flies to Italy to meet with the lawyer and then travels to the estate in Tuscany. She finds it in a dreadful state of disrepair. She meets the elderly couple working for the estate. They seem to have been devoted to Emilia Rossi. Piero is the caretaker, landscaper, and Anna is the cook and housekeeper. Anna tells Julia that Emilia did not want the property to be altered, thus it had deteriorated terribly. She also tells her that Emilia had no friends, was reclusive, and had insisted that all of her belongings be burned, even her Jewelry, dashing Julia’s hopes of finding DNA to see if there was any connection between them. Julia does see a photo which bears a striking resemblance to her. Could this woman have been her grandmother?
About halfway into the book, I was beginning to grow more and more disappointed with the direction it was taking. It was becoming chick lit, closer to a romantic fantasy in which the poor girl gets rich, then meets the handsome stranger, and they live happily ever after, contrary to what I had been hoping for in the novel. When the book began, I thought it was going to be a pretty good thriller, a murder mystery, something about the justice system, perhaps with a court case. Instead, it became an unexpected disappointment that seemed to be more of a romantic fantasy. I realized that I had no real interest in Julia’s escapades in Italy, her interest in astrology or her new-found romantic interests. I didn’t really care if she made the necessary repairs to the estate, fell in love again, or found her true heritage, because I already felt those answers were obvious. I wasn’t interested in the supernatural either, and Julia seemed to be experiencing visions. I still soldiered on and. In the end, it was more interesting than I thought it would be. All the questions raised were answered, there were some thrills as Julia’s search into her background became more dangerous and mysterious, and the romance had some interesting twists and turns, too. Why did Julia have hallucinations, moments of déjà vu, and even mystical gifts?
In summary, I think this book would be more suitable for the young adult looking for a fantasy and hoping for one’s own Cinderella experience that would happily resolve itself, regardless of how many twists, turns and traumatic events occurred.