Tuscany for Beginners by Imogene Edwards-JonesAfter leaving England and her cheating husband behind, Belinda Smith has enjoyed being the Queen Bee of her Tuscan valley. Not only is she the owner of the bed and breakfast Casa Mia, but she has been declared the "La Contessa of the Valley" by her fellow expatriates. Life is going very well. That is until the American Lauren shows up and declares that she is going to open her own bed and breakfast in Belinda's valley. Belinda can hardly stand being upstaged and replaced, so she resorts to petty trickery to derail the competition. Unfortunately for her, Lauren is a former Wall Street hotshot who specialized in hostile takeovers. As Belinda fights to retain control, she slowly realizes that she is in a losing battle.
This was yet another okay book. I really did not like Belinda. She was scheming, selfish, overbearing, lazy, and stupid. Obnoxious would also describe her. I hated the way she treated everyone, including her daughter. How she managed to even keep her business is a mystery to me since she was absolutely the worst hostess ever. I was actually rooting for Lauren to crush her and was a little disappointed that an earthquake demolishing her house was the worst she got. Her character never grew or learned from the experience. She never apologized and never accepted what a truly horrid person she was. The plot was mildly entertaining, but the distasteful main character made me not really care too much.
I would give this book 3 out of 5 stars. The plot was interesting. The main character ruined it for me. There were recipes. They looked pretty good.
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