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Adriana Trigiani
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Very Valentine: A Novel Paperback – Illustrated, January 5, 2010

by Adriana Trigiani (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,512 ratings
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New York Times Bestseller

Reading List Selection by American Library Association 

Lifetime original movie, starring Jacqueline Bissett and Kelen Coleman

“Sex and the City meets Moonstruck…this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.” — People

Poignant, funny, warm, and red hot, Very Valentine is a wonderful treat for Adriana Trigiani fans—a “delightful” (Boston Globe), “romance-soaked novel” (Marie Claire) from much adored playwright, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, and New York Times bestselling author of The Shoemaker's Wife, All the Stars in the Heavens and The Supreme Macaroni Company. The adventures of an extraordinary and unforgettable woman as she attempts to rescue her family’s struggling shoe business and find love at the same time, Very Valentine sweeps the reader from the streets of Manhattan to the picturesque hills of Italy. Here is yet another novel from the incomparable Trigiani that will steal your heart.

Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 3
    Valentine Trilogy
  2. Print length
    401 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    January 5, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780061257063
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0061257063
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“ Sex and the City meets Moonstruck … this first in a new trilogy from Trigiani is sly, sensual and dripping in style.” — People, Lead Review

May be [Triginai’s] best work to date… Delightful, energetic… Trigiani is a seemingly effortless storyteller.” — Boston Globe

“Well-crafted work with sometime lyrical, sometimes flat-out-funny writing.” — Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Trigiani has certainly not lost her ability to breathe life into everything she writes.” — Roanoke Times

“Adriana Trigiani listens to her readers, then gives them what they want. That’s why they’ll be ecstatic about her newest novel…” — Richmond Times-Dispatch

“No one ever reads just one of Trigiani’s wonderfully quirky tales. Once you pick up the first, you are hooked..... Trigiani fills her pages with snappy dialogue and luscious descriptions.... Reading Very Valentine is like tucking into a plate of homemade manicotti: irresistible and delicious.” — BookPage

“Load up on cappuccino and biscotti before getting lost in the super froth of Adriana Trigiani’s romance-soaked novel, Very Valentine” — Marie Claire

“[Very Valentine] will have readers who love romantic novels...swooning. Trigiani’s closing is satisfying, even as it paves the way for the lovable heroine to reappear in a planned sequel.” — Booklist

“This genteel and lush tale of soles and souls has loads of charm and will leave readers eager for the sequel.” — Publishers Weekly

“Trigiani offers plenty of reasons to stick around for part two.” — Kirkus Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Angelini Shoe Company, one of the last family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village, has been making exquisite wedding shoes since 1903 but now teeters on the brink of financial collapse. To save their business from ruin, thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli—apprentice to and granddaughter of master artisan Teodora Angelini—must bring the family's old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century. Juggling her budding romance with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge presented by a prestigious department store, Valentine returns to Italy with her grandmother in a quest to build a pair of glorious shoes to beat their rivals. And in the course of discovering her true artistic voice and so much more in la bella Italia, Valentine will be turning her life and the business upside down in ways she never expected.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0061257060
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Illustrated edition (January 5, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 401 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780061257063
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061257063
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.94 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 2,512 ratings

About the author

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Adriana Trigiani

Adriana Trigiani

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Beloved by millions of readers around the world as one of the "reigning queens of women's fiction", (USA Today), Adriana Trigiani is The New York Times bestselling author of 20 books in fiction and nonfiction, including The Shoemaker’s Wife, The Good Left Undone, Don’t Sing at the Table, and Lucia, Lucia. Published in 38 languages, The New York Times calls her "a comedy writer with a heart of gold", and her books "tiramisu for the soul". She is host of the hit podcast, You Are What You Read, in conversation with the great minds of our time about the books that built their souls.

Adriana is an award-winning playwright, television writer/producer and filmmaker. She wrote and directed the major motion picture adaptation of her debut novel Big Stone Gap, adapted her novel Very Valentine for television and directed Then Came You. She wrote and directed the documentary film, Queens of the Big Time, winner of the Audience Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival and Audience award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film was also featured at the London and Hong Kong International Film festivals.

Trigiani grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she co-founded The Origin Project, an in-school writing program serving over 2,700 students in Appalachia. In 2023, she was knighted with the Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia by President Sergio Mattarella of Italy. She is proud to serve on the New York State Council on the Arts and lives in New York City with her family.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
2,512 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

margaret hersh
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent writing.
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
excellent, this story holds your attention throughout the whole book, definately recommended.
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Ninoska Titinger
4.0 out of 5 stars A sumptuous treat. I loved it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2009
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I truly recommend this book, I loved it, every word, every phrase, every detailed and lively description. Trigiani takes you with her on her journey of self discovery and finding her true calling.
The cast of characters is vibrant, colorful and enchanting. The story takes place in the glorious Manhattan and also in the picture perfect hills of Italy.
Valentine Roncalli lives with her 80 year old grandmother and they work together on the Angelini Shoe Company. Her family has been dedicated to making exquisite wedding shoes since 1903; they are one of the last family owned businesses in Greenwich Village and now the company is facing financial collapse and Valentine wants to save the business because of what it represents and because she loves the trade.
Teodora Angelini is Valentine's grandmother and the master artisan but she is old and has no clue as to how she should expand her brand and grow the business in the 21st century.

Valentine wants to assume charge but her brother Alfred, wants to see the building altogether and leave Valentine without a job or a home.

While juggling a romance with a gorgeous chef called Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design challenge that must be presented to Bergdorf, Valentine goes to Italy with Teodora to learn new techniques and seek one of a kind materials for her shoes.
In Italy she will discover that her grandma holds a dear secret and she will also learn that her romance is not as important for Roman as it is for her. The trip will make her change and become a better artiste and a more mature woman, one who can take a challenge and make it work in her favor.
This book is a sumptuous treat, a journey of dreams fulfilled, a celebration of love and loss filled with Trigiani's heart and humor. A must read, go and get it I just can't wait for the saga to continue!
3 people found this helpful
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Amy D.
5.0 out of 5 stars so lovely!
Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2023
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This is such a wonderful book! Adriana is so descriptive and just absolutely amazing. I read this so quickly, can’t wait for the next one!
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YEPeterson
5.0 out of 5 stars Romance and shoes - for women
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2014
Verified Purchase
I read this trilogy out of order, but that still worked. The characters are well- drawn and three dimensional. Valentine, the fist-person narrator, is an apprentice to her eighty-year old grandmother, a master shoemaker. She carries on a rich legacy of wedding slipper design began by her great- grandfather.

At the beginning of the twenty- first century and the dawn of grandmother's retirement, Valentine is locked in battle with her businessman brother, who wants to sell the valuable piece of real estate the shop and their apartment are housed in, rather than carry on the family's business. Valentine struggles to find a way to save the business, which has developed her own artistic skills in shoe design, as well as "beat the clock" to love by her thirty-fourth birthday, especially when she discovers even grandma has a suitor.

Elaborate details slow down the plot, at times, but assure that we feel right at home with characters and settings in both New York and Italy. Fun, poignant, and educational. What more could a reader want!
One person found this helpful
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Cam Davis
3.0 out of 5 stars (SPOILERS) First Trigiani Book for Me (SPOILERS)
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2017
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There’s a lot to like about this book which is what I’ll deal with first. Unlike other readers, the descriptions made this book for me. They were luscious, sumptuous, and put me in that spot at that moment. It was also fun learning a little bit about the business (I’m a sucker for passing things down through the generations) and about the narrator’s family. The main story (Girl builds business after running into difficulties) was good. I enjoyed Teodora’s storyline a lot – she was a major minor character and was treated properly. The family unit was fun as well. I liked those characters as they were.

Unfortunately, the major characters weren’t treated properly. It seemed like maybe this book was over-edited, cutting out a lot of detail on the person who was supposed to be Valentine’s love interest. It felt like the relationship with Roman went from absolute zero to absolute love WAY too fast, and it turns out he was an unnecessary character anyway. One of my peeves is minor characters thrust into major roles. Roman does nothing to progress the story. If he was left out we would have known just as much about Valentine and Angelini Shoes, and we could have gotten to the end of the book with her successes intact. He was a distraction, and at the end I wondered why he was even in there. He was useless.

As for Valentine herself, on the first page (and on subsequent pages) the author goes out of her way to make sure we understand that she’s not the pretty one, not the smart one, but rather the funny one. The character was never funny. She seemed depressed and angry most of the time. Although those emotions worked for this character in this story, stop telling us she’s funny. She’s not. With as many men throwing themselves at her during the course of the book, it seems like she could pass for the pretty one. Or the sexy one. The character was set up to be something that the story didn’t bear out, so maybe the reader was supposed to take it on faith. Not a great idea in storytelling.

All that said, I would read another Valentine book. As stated earlier, there was a lot to like about Very Valentine. Pieces of the story were well told and the author does a fantastic job with descriptions of colors, shoes, and places. She also did very well with the actual minor characters and I really enjoyed those parts. With better editing and maybe some more time to hash out the odd / conflicting loose pieces, and another 100 pages to examine Roman as a real love interest and to develop the romantic story line, this book would be a 5/5.
13 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

joy wilton
5.0 out of 5 stars Adrianna trigianni books
Reviewed in Canada on October 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
Love all her books. This is my favourite. Read it when it first came out and just finished it on kindle. Just bought a copy for a very special friend
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Keith Crawford
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, engaging and thoroughly researched - a delight.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
Thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli is an apprentice shoemaker in her family business, learning to craft beautiful hand-made shoes from her grandmother while enduring the pressure from her Italian-American family to find a man and settle down. Just as she discovers the family business is in seriously financial difficulty, she meets Roman, a successful chef, and the possibility of a relationship with somebody who understands the pressures of her work becomes real. But what does Valentine really want?

Two things made me want to dislike this book. First, as a European, it annoys me when Americans call themselves Italians. Italians are Italians. They come from Italy.

Second, we are past 10% into the book before an initiating event occurs that starts the story moving. That’s 10% of the book that is pure introduction, exposition and wondering if something is going to happen soon.

I'm telling you this so you know Trigiani won me over in spite of all this.

The Italian American problem didn’t matter so much because Trigiani is able to vividly reproduce this American subculture with writing that is both beautiful and funny. Thus 10% of the book being exposition feels like having dinner with someone delightful sharing stories about a family wedding. It doesn’t matter what I think about American’s imagining they’re Italians – Trigiani shows us what this means to them and how it permeates their lives.

As for the romance, this is a love story between Valentine and her dream – making shoes - as much as it is Valentine and Roman. As her relationships help her discover more about herself, you’ll join a journey of self-discover and self-affirmation delightfully positive and real. The research into shoemaking is top notch and Trigiani writes this so well it fascinates

I rather miss Valentine now the book is finished – although this is the first of a trilogy so I can always find out what happens next. But this book was satisfying, complete, and human. I wouldn’t hesitate to read more of this author’s work
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Vivien Hughes
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Australia on November 26, 2014
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Good read
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donna parkes
4.0 out of 5 stars Br4ava Valenitne
Reviewed in Canada on February 15, 2013
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This is another book in the Valentine series that I wanted to read. Her books do not show up in local secondhand book store.
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leora
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but..
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2010
Verified Purchase
I liked this book as it is different from the normal chick lit which normally have similar endings. Valentine is a lovely character, but I felt parts of the storyline were dull and lagging a bit.. I think there was too much description at some parts - thousands of words used to describe silk gets a bit tedious after a while. Saying that, it did paint a beautiful picture and had real life situations which involved you in the book. It was a good read compared to what is out there, and provides some very interesting views into the lives of Italian Americans, cooking, into shoemaking etc.
Id recommend this to maturer readers (i.e. not teens).
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