It’s a real pleasure today to share my review of Then the Earth Moved by Mary Georgina de Grey. Published by The Wild Rose Press on 20th March, it’s now available via Amazon in the UK and US for kindle and in paperback – with that rather lovely cover – and also on other e-book platforms and through a range of US retailers that you’ll find here.
Now you might just wonder how I stumbled across this book. Back in November 2021 I had the pleasure of helping lead a workshop at the Exeter Literary Festival – a rather lovely short break in a beautiful part of the country, and always a joy to talk about blogging and the books I love. And, I’m pleased to report, the audience really seemed to enjoy it – the author was one of their number, and we’ve kept in touch. I should mention, I think, that Mary Georgina de Grey isn’t her real name – she borrowed that from her great grandmother – but isn’t it the perfect choice for a romantic novelist? I always particularly enjoy reading and reviewing a book when I’ve met the author – and I was really hoping I’d enjoy it…
Talented designer Isla Bruni is keen to widen her experience before setting up her own interiors business, so she accepts an exchange with a top studio located in an Italian hilltop town. She doesn’t trust Italian men—after all, hasn’t she had good reason? But irresistible, sexy entrepreneur Edmondo Benedetti turns her carefully ordered life upside down. How can she realize her ambitions without sacrificing love? Only when she’s thrust into danger does she begin to understand what is important.
The past is the past. Yet if secrets buried there resurface, could they destroy her future?
I’m not sure I’ve visited the Abruzzo region with its hilltop towns and dramatic scenery through the pages of a book before – but I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it through the author’s wonderful descriptions (the vistas, the architecture, the historical detail, the food and drink…) that made me feel that I’d really spent time there. Interiors as well as the beautiful countryside – seen through the eyes of interior designer Isla Bruni, and the detail is simply wonderful. And the whole book was one I thoroughly enjoyed – a particularly well-told story, a romance that really engaged me, and some especially well-written drama that certainly made the pages turn even faster.
A stranger catches Isla’s eye on an evening out in the bar of an expensive hotel in Milan after an interior design conference – they don’t even speak, but she’s so attracted by him that she even tries to track him down through the conference organisers, only to conclude it’s going to be impossible and leaving for her exchange attachment with a prestigious studio in Fortezza del Tronto. Taking on a particularly juicy assignment to remodel the interior of a tower at the restored castle home of a client she knows only as “il conte”, she’s delighted to see the scale of work needed – and then thrown off her professional stride a little by the arrival of the man himself, Edmondo, the one who made her heart beat rather faster in that Milan bar.
Isla vowed to avoid any entanglements with Italian men, her father having abandoned her mother to return to his homeland when she was a child, but there’s a sizzle between them you can really feel – he likes her design ideas too, and they attempt to set aside the chemistry between them to work in partnership on the project as their friendship grows. He’s an entrepreneur, his money made from manufacturing plastic components – bearings for buildings after the 2016 earthquake in the region, making them safe against any future events, with a particularly strong social conscience, one of the good guys. But he’s also a father – with a young child, Adriano, from his now defunct marriage, who moves to live with him after being passed from pillar to post, and who develops a real attachment to Isla through their shared love of drawing.
Enough – I really mustn’t tell you the whole story, because the author does it so much better, shifting nicely between the two main characters’ viewpoints, sharing their thoughts, helping you feel that exceptional chemistry between them as their relationship develops, all with the most perfect emotional touch. And as well as that really engaging slow-build romance, there are a few intriguing sub-plots and diversions, and some particularly excellent moments of drama too – with one life-threatening situation that really had me on the edge of my seat, quite superbly written. I enjoyed the story’s family focus too – Edmondo’s love for his son, Isla’s sometimes less easy relationship with her mother, the emerging truth about her father – and the friendships Isla made as she began to feel at home in Italy and started to consider her future. And I can’t speak highly enough of the author’s storytelling – I was reluctant to set this book aside until the conclusion, entirely caught up in the lives of its characters.
I’m always a little reluctant to draw comparisons, but as others won’t be familiar with the author’s writing I think I’ll do so anyway – definitely TA Williams, maybe a little Linn B Halton (the settings, and the same eye for design…), with a touch of Victoria Springfield and Sue Moorcroft too. But there’s nothing at all derivative about this book or the author’s writing – she has a style all of her own, and it was one I very much enjoyed. As this is her first venture into romance, I can’t wait to see what she does next. A strong recommendation from me – a book I really hope others will try, and enjoy as much as I did.
About the author
A former teacher and prolific writer of modern language courses, Mary Georgina de Grey has also written a number of novels, mostly thrillers. During lockdown, she felt the need to travel and thought romance could give her a few good places to visit. The experience has been good in so many ways that she is now an enthusiastic writer of romance and has recently completed another, set in Spain.
Then The Earth Moved, which was published by The Wild Rose Press on 20th March 2023, is the first of a series. Each story is set in a different country in which Mary Georgina has lived or travelled extensively, and of which she speaks the language, more or less well.
As these are romances, the main female character inevitably juggles her hopes and ambitions with falling in love – and must find a way to make things work out.
‘My attention was caught by what happened in the Abruzzo region in 2016 when the earthquakes occurred, and I followed events closely. I knew the area and felt a close connection. I wrote a short story in which my heroine appeared and put it aside. It was five years later that I began to write the novel.’
Mary Georgina lives on the beautiful South Devon coast with her husband – and a constantly-changing stream of visitors. Interests begin with reading and foreign languages of all kinds, of course. Cooking and gardening are high on the list, and she loves to design and make elegant jackets to wear at any event where she gets the chance. And did she mention writing? That has always been important to her.
