🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 3.5/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read The Fall Affair yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
No one blows things up quite like a woman who feels wronged. That was my first impression of this book. Allegra is one of the best lawyers at her firm, expecting to make partner, and then she walks in on the senior partner getting a little bonus from one of the female lawyers. That same, far less experienced lawyer gets the partnership. Allegra does not.
What follows is a very eventful evening.
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
The Blow Up
Allegra goes out, drinks way too much, marches into the men’s washroom, and tells the senior partner exactly what she thinks of him — that he takes bonuses in exchange for partnerships and that she would never be willing to do that for him, then she quits. On her way out she runs into the woman who just made partner and tells her exactly what she thinks of that too.
The following morning she is slowly piecing together the evening. The partner calls and wants to meet. She goes — not entirely sure why — and he offers her the partnership if she signs a nondisclosure. She keeps asking questions. Why is he willing to offer this? Does he actually think the other lawyer deserved it? He tells her that is her problem right there — she feels entitled just because she put in the work. She leaves that meeting with such a sour taste that she decides she does not want the partnership anymore. She is done. Her friend tells her maybe it is time to take some time off. She agrees.
And then a package arrives in the mail.
The Inheritance
I am going to pause here and be completely honest. From the moment that package arrived I had a very strong feeling I had seen this movie before. Woman wronged at work, quits just in time to receive an inheritance, but it comes with a catch — she must live and work there for three months. In Tuscany. Where she will fall in love, return to New York, find that nothing feels quite the same, and go back. That is a Hallmark movie I have seen at least fifty times.
Anyway. The letter is from her late Nonna. Nonna has died and left her everything including a letter. She wants Allegra to slow down, to stop working all the time. The lawyer tells her there are a few million dollars worth of land involved. So she heads to Italy.
Matteo
Matteo is the neighbor. He has been caretaking for her grandmother. He also took in her grandmother’s now blind dog. He has a vineyard. He drives a Vespa. He is so thoroughly the blueprint for this type of book that I actually laughed out loud.
He is also, once the book actually gets going, a genuinely interesting character. He was previously married to Isabella, who was a free spirited, constantly moving kind of person. She went on a trip, was supposed to be gone three months, came back over a year later, and the relationship was never quite the same. He proposed and they got married, but she never settled down. She was always gone — travelling. He eventually found out she had been cheating on him. She left, then when she found out she was dying she came back. Matteo has been carrying all of it.
The book weaves in flashbacks to his relationship with Isabella throughout — her restlessness, the yoga retreat in India after which she came back completely distant, the gallery showing where her ex was playing the music and she stayed longer than planned without telling him. Piece by piece you get the full picture of a relationship that was always heading somewhere he could not follow.
The Tea Set
Allegra’s grandmother has been collecting a specific tea set for years. Each piece is hand painted and seems to have something different written on it. She has been collecting them since before Allegra arrived and several pieces have been found since she got to Italy. So Allegra continues to collect it.
When Allegra is at Matteo’s house one day she notices a cup that nearly falls. She catches it. It is part of the tea set. She asks him about it and he tells her Isabella had it. He found it with her things after she died. Turns out Isabella had painted them.
Later Matteo stumbles across the full box. He is furious. He reads the confessions on each cup. Every single one corresponds to a place Isabella told him she was visiting family or friends. They were all places she visited with the man she was seeing behind his back. He had been carrying grief and guilt about a relationship that was never what he thought it was. The tea set is the thing that breaks it open.
The Hidden Sister
The hidden sister part is where the book finally got genuinely interesting for me and I was about a third of the way through at that point. A lawyer reaches out regarding the estate. Someone has found another heir. Allegra’s father had another child she knew nothing about.
Her sister’s name is Camilla. She is Italian. Their father had been with Camilla’s mother before he went abroad, reconnected with her ten years later, and was with her for six years after that — a six year affair while he was married to Allegra’s mother. Camilla’s mother knew he was married and carried on anyway. Camilla was six years old the last time she heard from their father. She was waiting for him to call on her birthday. He never called that day or ever again. Naturally she has abandonment issues.
Allegra goes to meet Camilla in person, in disguise by name only, pretending to be a business client under a fake name. She only has her grandmother’s address to give. The sister looks at her and says Allegra, wait. She had been following Allegra on social media basically her whole life. She knew who she was the moment she walked in.
They slowly build a real relationship from there and it is one of the warmer threads in the book.
The Grandmother
The grandmother is an absolute character. She leaves letters for seemingly everyone — some with instructions, some settling old scores. She leaves one for her sister that basically says screw you, I leave you nothing, and has Allegra deliver it personally. She leaves Matteo a letter on his birthday thanking him for everything he has done and then letting him in on a few secrets, because, as she puts it, she can stir the pot from anywhere. She tells him to go get the girl. Do not be a chicken. If Allegra happens to be the one he falls in love with, beat her door down.
At their wedding eighteen months later a letter from the grandmother is read. She admits she brought Allegra to Italy specifically to fall in love with Matteo. She knew they would be perfect together. Matchmaking beyond the grave. You have to respect the commitment.
The Relationship
Allegra and Matteo circle each other for a long time. She suggests a hookup. He wants more. She pushes back because she is leaving eventually and things are too complicated. The drive home after meeting Camilla is quiet and awkward. She eventually goes to apologize and he accepts easily, invites her to dinner, and that becomes a date.
When a former client reaches out from New York asking her to come back and finish a case, she asks Matteo if he wants to come with her. He agrees, but New York clearly makes him uncomfortable. He can see how happy she is working as a lawyer. She can see him thinking about how he could ever ask her to leave this. She thinks the same thing about him because his life is in Italy.
The tension finally boils over when she gets a job offer from her old firm’s biggest rival — a partnership. She had not told him about the interview. He tells her to take it. He cannot be responsible for holding her there. He also says he should not have let things go so far. This was a mistake. She tells him exactly what she thinks of that and walks out. She is no one’s mistake.
He sees her car leaving and assumes she is gone for good. He goes home to find a letter from the grandmother waiting. He peels out of his driveway to go after her, planning to drive to New York if he has to, buy a ticket at the airport, whatever it takes. Then he sees her car. She had sold everything in the store at a rock bottom price so she would have somewhere to work. She is starting her own firm. She is going to work remotely from Italy, go back occasionally for trials. She is staying.
Eighteen months later she is getting married at his vineyard and has written the Italian bar exam. She and Camilla are going to open a practice together if she passes.
What Went Unresolved
A couple of things never got addressed that I kept waiting for. The initial mention of the estate mentioned millions of dollars worth of land. The hidden heir situation — Camilla — was introduced and then the legal claim to the will just quietly disappeared. Did Camilla relinquish any claim? Did they share it? Did Allegra just make unilateral decisions about the house and the store and nobody questioned it? The land itself is also never mentioned again. These feel like threads the book opened and then forgot about.
Best Part of This Book
The grandmother. Stirring the pot from beyond the grave, leaving a letter specifically timed to arrive on Matteo’s birthday, admitting at the wedding that she orchestrated the entire thing from her deathbed. She is the best character in the book and every scene she is in, even posthumously through her letters, is the most fun the book has.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥🔥 — Low heat. The romance takes a long time to develop and the physical side of it is not the focus.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Satisfied with where they land. Some unresolved threads kept nagging at me but the ending itself is warm and the grandmother’s letter at the wedding is a lovely payoff.
Would I Reread It?
No.
A Note on Narration
Andi Arndt is her usual excellent self. Connor Crais going for an Italian accent is — look, I am sure he tried his best. But every time he spoke all I could think was Dracula!!! That is not a knock on the book but it did not help the experience. Muahaha.
Who Is This For
Vi Keeland fans who are curious about her trying something with a more international setting. Readers who love a slow burn with a Tuscany backdrop and a grandmother who absolutely refuses to let anyone be miserable on her watch. Just know going in that the first third feels very familiar and the hidden sister is really the only twist that lifts it above the Hallmark movie blueprint.
Where to Get
📖 Physical Book
Amazon | Bookshop.org
🎧 Audiobook
Audible
📱 Ebook
Amazon
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