The House by the Cypress Trees

This book was so good! I was captivated by the second page! This was a hard to put down book, I quickly devoured the pages racing towards the ending! Loved the rescued puppy too! Thanks to Netgalley for the early copy, definitely recommend!

THE HOUSE BY THE CYPRESS TREES by Elena Mikalsen is a sweet and touching story of chance encounters and finding love when you least expect it. After her adopted mother passes away from an extended illness, Julia Ramos travels to Italy for a brief respite after her constant care-giving. She also hopes to find her birth mother, a woman she has never heard from but she has been told lives in Italy. A series of mishaps causes Julia to literally collide with a handsome British man who is in Italy for an important work presentation and a romantic getaway with his latest girlfriend at his family’s home in Tuscany. When Daniel’s presentation bombs and his girlfriend suddenly dumps him, he knows that his trip is slated for disaster. As he heads out to his sister’s vineyard home, he offers to help Julia find her way to her mother’s home nearby. The two set out on a journey that leads to several misadventures and more than their share of misunderstandings. There are many amusing and romantic moments as the pair are forced to spend time together under these unusual circumstances. The descriptions of the cities, the beautiful vineyard estate, the Amalfi coastline and the sumptuous food were so vivid, I felt like I was there with the characters. I enjoyed this charming story of family, friendship and love and highly recommend it.

Escape to Italy and fall in love with Julia and Daniel in this endearing love story! Julia is a school teacher from Texas who is in Italy to find her birth mother. When she impulsively rescues a puppy from its abusive owner she is almost struck by a car driven by Daniel, a British architect! Not the most promising way to meet someone, but some things are just meant to be! What follows is a very sweet and charming romance, with some bumps in the road, along with some family interference and intervention! This is the perfect book to pack in your suitcase on vacation, to read on the beach or in front of a fireplace—whisking you away to the beauty of Rome, Tuscany, and the Amalfi Coast!

Reading this book made me smile, and opened up all my senses to the talented storytelling by wonderful Elena Mikalsen. I was moved to laughter, love and swoon over my lead characters, Julia – an American Geography Teacher from Texas, and Daniel – a British Architect.

The setting of the story is in the beautiful Italy. Our characters first meet in the bustling metropolis of Rome, then falling in love in the hills of Tuscany, then sealing their fate in the beautiful Amalfi coast. The descriptions of the food (pastas, fresh seafood, risotto and gelattos), the vibrant colors ( the yellows of Sorrento, the pinks and purples of Positano, and the whites and greens of Ravello), did not lack in providing the best imagery for this love story.

The character development were written well not only for the leads, but I also loved the other cast of characters, especially his niece Mia and of course the puppy Julia rescues from abuse that was named Lizzy, who plays an important role in the story.

Julia is sweet, sensitive, and not the worldly type, who wears her heart in her sleeves. Her mother’s recent death led to the discovery that she is adopted, and that her birth mother lives in Italy. She is off to find her mother, and along this journey she discovers much more.

Daniel is precision focused in his career, and has a poor track record with the women he dates, and was described as a person who is a “selfish bastard who only cared about his career”. Daniel sees something special in Julia that is causing this unbelievable attraction between the two.

How these two end up together is a journey filled with excitement, some family interference, and also some heartfelt gestures to help this couple along.

There is just the right amount of steamy romance, but all the right amount of feels for a charming, and a feel good love story of two unlikely couple, bound to fall in love in the beauty of Italy, its cultures, food and traditions.

I highly recommend this book for a great feel good, light hearted love story in a beautiful Italian setting. It’s AMORE!

Thank you to the author who gifted me a copy of this book for an opportunity to read and review this amazing book!! Thank you to @suzyapprovedbooktours for a spot in this tour.

This is another one of those reviews where I don’t quite know where to start. I’m sitting here struggling trying to put into words how I feel, and suddenly Andrea Bocelli”s Con Te Partiro starts to play, and I am covered in goosebumps. And there it is….. right there, exactly how this book made me feel. OMG I still have all the feelies. Can this song be over already??? Coincidence about that song? Oh, I don’t think so.

When you read the synopsis for The House by the Cypress Trees you immediately think of a cute little quirky romcom (right up my alley). Check off box #1. Then the book starts out with a young, single girl alone in Italy for the first time, who spontaneously rescues a puppy. Check off box #2 and #3 (Come on people a PUPPY)! So now you are just as sold as I am, right? Enter sexy British business guy. Ok, I will stop checking boxes. This one has hit the mark. But you see, thats not all, this is not just a simple friends to lovers, throw in a cute pet, kinda comical romance. This book makes you fall in love, oh yes, I said love.

See, there’s substance to this book. These characters have backstory, and you really start to feel for them. Julia Ramos an American from Texas who has been touched by tragedy. She is alone in Italy trying to find a birth mother she never even knew existed, and now feels like she has lost the only family she has ever known. As her trip to Italy slowly spirals downhill (just because she seems to have my luck and everything that can go wrong will go wrong) she happens to almost get hit by a car being driven by a gorgeous British guy. Daniel (gorgeous British guy) has his own problems. His love life is a mess, he is unhappy at work, has just botched a huge work deal and just wants to get to Tuscany to see his sister. Now he almost hit a tourist (Julia) with his rental car and his trip seems to be spiraling downwards on the same path as Julia’s. Somehow with this one chance meeting, these two worlds collide and Julia and Daniel end up helping each other out of kindness, convenience, and some pretty strong internal feelings too. The story is told in alternating point of view which really helps you understand the emotions each of them are feeling at the exact same time, and they are really pretty detailed too.

As Daniel and Julia help each other on their journey we continue to learn more about the characters, their family, their personal life, and the people they love. They become people with hearts, emotions and tragedies, and we feel right along with them. It’s a romance that seems so crazy but you want them together so badly you read the book in one sitting just to see how things end up. I laughed, I cried, I got angry at Daniel’s family, I wanted to move to Italy, and I gained 20 pounds and got drunk just by proxy.

But thats not all. This book, it is about Italy, architecture, wine making, baking, culture, family and yes, love. Elena Mikalsen researched this area and country so well. The writing is so effortless yet you have no idea how much work she put into the premise of this book. How do I know? Take a look at her website. (link below) Elena traveled to this area. She has photos of places that inspired the book. Gorgeous, amazing, wonderful photos. She has a dedicated Pinterest board with photos that helped inspire clothing, characters, food, and even puppy Lizzy to create this amazing tale. She’s been to the area, she eaten the food, she’s seen the sights, and she’s taken every ounce of those memories and found a way to put them on paper to make each of us fall in love with it too. And if thats not enough? Right there on that blog page is a beautiful custom soundtrack for the novel made by Elena that can be listened to and downloaded on Spotify. So, Con Te Partiro and Andrea Bocelli a coincidence? Nope, not at all, and I promise you when I go to Italy and visit all these exact places, I will have this soundtrack playing on my earbuds.

“Julia’s entire body melted into Daniel’s as they danced. Her heart beat with the rhythm of every note of the gorgeous song. Only the stars watched them as they moved slowly in the garden of this ancient land, on top of this magnificent hill, inhaling the aromatic fragrances of roses and herbs. Perhaps it was all magic and, at midnight, the spell would break and she’d find herself sitting in an old rag of a dress, in front of a pumpkin, holding a glass slipper. But then—did it matter? All that mattered was the way Daniel looked at her right now, how it felt when his fingers rubbed her back in small circles, sending electrical pulses all over her body. Andrea Bocelli stopped singing, Daniel’s hands moved away, and the spell broke. “Thank you,” she said, suddenly shy. “I haven’t danced in years.” “Someone should dance with you often, Julia Ramos,” he said, taking hold of her hand and leading her to the house.”

So no, this isn’t just your simple spicy romance (though it is quite spicy and quite good). It truly made me fall in love. I fell in love with the idea of romance again, the idea of falling in love again, the love of family, the love of a beautiful country, good food, amazing culture, phenomenal history, and one damn good glass of wine. This was one of the most enjoyable and heartwarming romances I have ever read. It had just enough spice, just enough snark, just enough sadness and heartbreak, and in the end just enough romcom to bring it all together. I read this in one sitting, cover to cover. There was no putting it down. Hands down a 5 star rating for overwhelming me with emotions, making me cry, and probably making me force my husband to take me to Italy a lot sooner than he thinks. Highly recommend. WOW.

I just would like to thank Elena Mikalsen, Suzanne Leopold of Suzy Approved Book Tours and (#partner) The Wild Rose Press, Inc. for the copy of this book for my unbiased and honest opinion for review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book .The characters were interesting, the multiple plots interesting and loved it set in Italy.

A delightful romance set in the gorgeous setting of Tuscany. It was a fun read and kept me turning pages all the way to the end.

Great Italian setting with romance permeating the air and wonderful characters (and with a little dog, too!). The bittersweet moments of heroine Julia’s loss are tempered by her blossoming relationship with Daniel, a British architect whose man about town ways may just be a thing of the past. I really enjoyed Julia’s travels around the country on the trail of her Italian family connections. The food and countryside descriptions made me want to get a ticket and jet off to Italy for my own adventure!

Thanks to publisher The Wild Rose Press and NetGalley for providing a complimentary advance copy of the book. This is my voluntary and honest review.

THE HOUSE BY THE CYPRESS TREES is the first book I’ve read by Elena Mikalsen, and I was quite impressed. This is a sweet romance that takes place in Italy, specifically, Rome, Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast, and I was swept away with the concept of two people falling in love in such a romantic country. Other genres for this novel are fiction, women’s fiction, and contemporary fiction.

Julia Ramos is a teacher from Texas and is traveling to Italy to find her birth mother. She lost her adopted mother, so she’s on a mission to find her birth mother she’s never met. While there, she rescues an abused puppy from an undesirable and, upon doing so, manages to almost get hit by a car that is driven by a dashing British architect named Daniel Stafford. Daniel is preoccupied with his thoughts regarding his job and the presentation he just gave which became a disaster as his clients weren’t quite enthused about as Julia runs into the street with the pup. Thankfully, a catastrophe is avoided, and all Daniel wants to do is offer this captivating American woman a ride. However, all she wants to do is to get away to protect the puppy. As Julia and Daniel are both running from their calamities, they collide into each other’s lives, and a beautiful romance forms that will sweep the reader away.

Mikalsen’s descriptions of the landscape, the food, and the vineyards will entice the reader to want to book a trip to Italy right away! I know I’m longing to take a trip there, and she made it all the more appealing! Her characters and their family dynamics are also beautifully portrayed in this wonderful novel. I enjoyed everything about this story very much, and highly recommend it.