The Difference is Spumoni!

The Difference, is a novel, by C. D’Angelo.

And The Difference is categorized as a genealogy and immigration women’s fiction novel. This is one of the main reasons I picked it up!

What I loved the most about The Difference? If you’ve read it, what did you love?

There is a very cool outcome between the main character Rachel Granza’s fascination with the Titanic and her frantic and often fruitless search for her grandfather’s history!

I loved the Italian genealogy theme, of which I am also familiar. The process of hunting down leads on Ancestry. Learning about NARA. (I have submitted for more info on my own mysterious Italian grandfather!)

I loved that we even shared the “going to Italy” trip to learn more. Meeting cugino’s; Italian cousins who shed light on the unknown side of Rachel’s family in Genoa, in The Difference, and in Abruzzo, in my own biological family.

In the novel, I craved more depth about Rachel’ Granza’s anxiety over her family. But perhaps that was just me talking about my own anxiety, perhaps the level of Rachel’s anxiety in “The Difference” was just perfect for this story.

What would you do and how far would you go to learn the secrets of your birth family?

It is during a dinner where Rachel and Bryan (her fiancé/boyfriend) enjoy shrimp and roasted peppers and olives, that he suggests they actually go to Italy, and that scene dovetails nicely with this scene once they are in Italy.

“I sip my white wine and let its sweetness glide down my throat. The cold temperature feels refreshing on this sunny day. Listening to the dueling accordionists on the path next to this patio, I savor my shrimp scampi while its fresh lemon and garlic invade my veins.”

Does reading about food, and in this case, Italian food, make you want to jump up and cook? Or jump up and go to Italy?

It made me want to do all those things, and also jump up and reach out to the author, C. D’Angelo. In The Difference Rachel Granza has a kind of obsession for Spumoni, and authentic Spumoni, which is always sliced and never scooped. I remember my own Spumoni affliction so well from when we went out for Italian Food in my little town of Reading, Pennsylvania.

So, please check out her website, buy The Difference, and sign up for her newsletter to get the scoop on her next book, The Gift.

And make her family’s recipe for Spumoni. Yes, you can do this!

All I can say is, I’m off to the kitchen.