Adriana Trigiani has 17 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 9 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 11 ratings. The most-rated is Kiss Carlo.
Kiss Carlo
Summary
From Adriana Trigiani, the beloved New York Times best-selling author of The Shoemaker's Wife, comes an exhilarating epic novel of love, loyalty, and creativity - the story of an Italian American family on the cusp of change. It's 1949, and South Philadelphia bursts with opportunity during the postwar boom. The Palazzini Cab Company & Western Union Telegraph Office, owned and operated by Dominic Palazzini and his three sons, is flourishing: Business is good, and they're surrounded by sympathetic wives and daughters-in-law, with grandchildren on the way. But a decades-long feud that split Dominic and his brother, Mike, and their once-close families sets the stage for a rematch. Amidst the hoopla, the arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone (Dominic and his wife's orphaned nephew), who lives and works with his uncle Dom and his family. Nicky decides, at 30, that he wants more - more than just a job driving car number four and more than his longtime fiancée, Peachy DePino, a bookkeeper, can offer. When he admits to his fiancée that he's been secretly moonlighting at the local Shakespeare theater company, Nicky finds himself drawn to the stage, its colorful players, and the determined Calla Borelli, who inherited the enterprise from her father, Nicky must choose between the conventional life his family expects of him and charting a new course and risking losing everything he cherishes. From the dreamy mountaintop village of Roseto Valfortore in Italy to the vibrant streets of South Philly to the close-knit enclave of Roseto, Pennsylvania, to New York City during the birth of the golden age of television, Kiss Carlo is a powerful intergenerational story that celebrates the ties that bind while staying true to oneself when all hope seems lost. Told against the backdrop of some of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, this novel brims with romance as long-buried secrets are revealed, mistaken identities are unmasked, scores are settled, broken hearts are mended, and true love reigns. Trigiani's consummate storytelling skill and her trademark wit, along with a dazzling cast of characters, will enthrall listeners. Once again the author has returned to her own family garden to create an unforgettable feast. Kiss Carlo is a jubilee, resplendent with hope, love, and the abiding power of la famiglia.
©2017 The Glory of Everything Company (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers
The Shoemaker's Wife
Summary
The fateful first meeting of Enza and Ciro takes place amid the haunting majesty of the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century. Still teenagers, they are separated when Ciro is banished from his village and sent to hide in New York's Little Italy, apprenticed to a shoemaker, leaving a bereft Enza behind. But when her own family faces disaster, she, too, is forced to emigrate to America. Though destiny will reunite the star-crossed lovers, it will, just as abruptly, separate them once again - sending Ciro off to serve in World War I, while Enza is drawn into the glamorous world of the opera...and into the life of the international singing sensation Enrico Caruso. Still, Enza and Ciro have been touched by fate - and, ultimately, the power of their love will change their lives forever. A riveting historical epic of love and family, war and loss, risk and destiny, inspired by the author's own family history, The Shoemaker's Wife is the novel Adriana Trigiani was born to write.
©2012 Adriana Trigiani (P)2020 Random House Audio
Big Stone Gap
Summary
Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime - a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. Brimming with humor and wise notions of small-town life, Big Stone Gap is a gem of a book with a giant heart....
©2003 Adriana Trigiani (P)2012 Random House Audio
Tony's Wife
Summary
Set in the lush Big Band era of the 1940s and World War II, this spellbinding saga from beloved New York Times best-selling author Adriana Trigiani tells the story of two talented working class kids who marry and become a successful singing act, until time, temptation, and the responsibilities of home and family derail their dreams. Shortly before World War II, Chi Chi Donatelli and Saverio Armandonada meet one summer on the Jersey shore and fall in love. Both are talented and ambitious, and both share the dream of becoming singers for the legendary orchestras of the time: Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman. They’re soon married, and it isn’t long before Chiara and Tony find that their careers are on the way up as they navigate the glamorous worlds of night clubs, radio, and television. All goes well until it becomes clear they must make a choice: Which of them will put their ambitions aside to raise a family and which will pursue a career? And how will they cope with the impact that decision has on their lives and their marriage? From the Jersey shore to Las Vegas to Hollywood, and all the dance halls in between, this multilayered story is vivid with historical color and steeped in the popular music that serves as its score. Tony’s Wife is a magnificent epic of life in a traditional Italian family undergoing seismic change in a fast-paced modern world. Filled with vivid, funny, and unforgettable characters, this richly human story showcases Adriana Trigiani’s gifts as a storyteller and her deep understanding of family, love, and the pursuit of the American dream.
©2019 Adriana Trigiani (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
Viola in Reel Life
Summary
I'm marooned. Abandoned. Left to rot in boarding school.... Viola doesn't want to go to boarding school, but somehow she ends up at an all-girls school in South Bend, Indiana, far, far away from her home in Brooklyn, New York. Now, Viola is stuck for a whole year in the sherbet-colored sweater capital of the world. Ick. There's no way Viola's going to survive the year - especially since she has to replace her best friend, Andrew, with three new roommates who, disturbingly, actually seem to like it there. She resorts to viewing the world (and hiding) behind the lens of her video camera. Boarding school, though, and her roommates and even the Midwest are nothing like she thought they would be, and soon Viola realizes she may be in for the most incredible year of her life. But first she has to put the camera down and let the world in.
©2009 Adriana Trigiani (P)2020 Random House Audio
Home to Big Stone Gap
Summary
New York Times best seller Millions around the world have fallen in love with the novels of New York Times best-selling author Adriana Trigiani. In Home to Big Stone Gap, she tells her most powerful story yet, full of humor and heart, wisdom, and hope. “[Trigiani is] one of the reigning queens of women’s fiction.” (USA?Today) Nestled in the lush Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the town of Big Stone Gap has been home for Ave Maria Mulligan Machesney and her family for generations. She's been married to her beloved Jack for nearly 20 years, raised one child and buried another, and run a business that binds her community together, all while holding her tight circle of family and friends close. But with her daughter, Etta, having flown the nest to enchanting Italy, Ave Maria has reached a turning point. When a friend's postcard arrives with the message "It's time to live your life for you", Ave Maria realizes that it's time to go in search of brand-new dreams. But before she can put her foot on the path, her life is turned upside down. Ave Maria agrees to helm the town musical, a hilarious reunion of local talent, past and present. A lifelong friendship collapses when a mysterious stranger comes to town and reveals a long-buried secret. An unexpected health crisis threatens her family. An old heartthrob reappears, challenging her marriage and offering a way out of her troubles. Then an opportunistic coal company comes to town and threatens to undermine the town's way of life and the mountain landscape Ave Maria has treasured since she was a girl. Now she has no choice but to reinvent her world, her life, and herself, whether she wants to or not. Trigiani is at her best in this exquisite novel. Home to Big Stone Gap is an emotional and unforgettable journey that reminds us that you can go home - again and again. “The writing is as fresh and flowing as if Ave Maria has just rediscovered her one true love: the colorful town of Big Stone Gap.... Trigiani keeps the pages turning.” (The Roanoke Times) “[Trigiani is] a consistently appealing storyteller, whatever the subject matter.... It’s good to come home to Big Stone Gap. Trigiani’s light touch yields a realistic portrayal of small-town life...and a cast of charmingly imperfect characters.” (BookPage) “Memorable characters and small-town magic...continue to have appeal.” (Publishers Weekly)
©2006 Adriana Trigiani (P)2006 Books on Tape
Rococo
Summary
New York Times best seller “Eccentric, unpredictable, entertaining...This novel is a treat.” (The Boston Globe) Bartolomeo di Crespi is the acclaimed interior decorator - not to mention the most eligible bachelor - in Our Lady of Fatima, New Jersey. From the dazzling shores of the Garden State to the legendary fabric houses of New York City, from the prickly purveyors of fine art in London to the Mediterranean coast of Italy, Bartolomeo is on a mission to bring talent, sophistication, and his aesthetic vision to his hometown. So when the renovation of the local church is scheduled, he assumes there is only one man to oversee the job. Recruiting an artist and a stained-glass artisan to help with the project - two handsome men who create romantic mayhem among Bartolomeo’s sister, his erstwhile fiancée, and all the other lovelorn ladies of OLOF - Bartolomeo struggles to create art while remaining the steadfast linchpin of the volatile di Crespi clan. Together, Bartolomeo and his team will do more than blow the dust off the old Fatima frescoes - they will turn the town upside down, challenge the faithful, and restore hope where there once was none. Praise for Rococo: “A veritable crazy quilt of quirky Italian Americans...Trigiani weaves all [the] subplots together with wonderful ease.” (Entertainment Weekly) “A summer must-read...a hilarious mix of...humor, lust, [and] family dynamics.” (The Hartford Courant) “An artfully designed tale [with] characters so lively they bounce off the page [and] wit so subtle that even the best jokes seem effortless.” (People)
©2005 Adriana Trigiani (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.
The Queen of the Big Time
Summary
In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in the Bari region of Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, made a mass migration to the promised land of America. They settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, and re-created their former lives in their new home, down to the very last detail of who lived next door to whom. The village's annual celebration of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, or "the Big Time", as the occasion is called by the young women who compete to be the pageant's Queen, is the centerpiece of Roseto's colorful old-world tradition. The industrious Castellucas farm the land outside Roseto. Nella, the middle daughter of five, aspires to a genteel life "in town", far from the rigors of farm life, which have taken a toll on her mother and forced her father to take extra work in the slate quarries to make ends meet. But Nella's dreams of making her own fortune shift when she meets Renato Lanzara, the son of a prominent Roseto family. Renato is a worldly, handsome, devil-may-care poet who has a way with words that makes him irresistible. Their friendship ignites into a fiery romance that Nella is certain will lead to marriage. But Nella is not alone in her pursuit: every girl in town seems to want Renato. When he disappears without explanation, Nella is left with a shattered heart. Four years later, Renato's sudden return to Roseto the night before Nella's wedding to the steadfast Franco Zollerano leaves her and the Castelluca family shaken. For although Renato has chosen a path very different from Nella's, they are fated to live and work in Roseto, where the past hangs over them like a brewing storm. An epic of small-town life, etched in glorious detail in the trademark Trigiani style, The Queen of the Big Time is the story of a determined, passionate woman who can never forget her first love.
©2004 Adriana Trigiani (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Big Cherry Holler
Summary
Big Cherry Holler, the extraordinary sequel to Big Stone Gap, takes us back to the mountain life that enchanted us in Adriana Trigiani's best selling debut novel. It's been eight years since town pharmacist and longtime spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married coal miner Jack MacChesney. With her newfound belief in love and its possibilities, Ave Maria has made a life for herself and her growing family, hoping that her fearless leap into commitment will make happiness stay. What she hasn't counted on is that fate and the ghosts of the past will come to haunt her and, eventually, test the love she has for her husband. Big Cherry Holler is the story of a marriage, revealing the deep secrets, the power struggle, the betrayal, and the unmet expectations that can exist between husband and wife. But it is also the story of a community that must reinvent itself as it comes to grips with the decline of the coal-mining industry and of an extended family, the people of Big Stone Gap, who are there for one another, especially when times are tough. When Ave Maria takes her daughter to Italy for the summer and meets a handsome stranger who offers her a life beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, she is forced to decide what she really wants. Brimming with humor, wisdom, and honesty, and the drama and local color of the mountain life from Virginia to Italy, Big Cherry Holler is a deeply felt, brilliantly evoked story of two lovers who have lost their way, and their struggle to find each other again.
©2001 by Adriana Trigiani (P)2001 Random House, Inc., Random House AudioBooks, a Division of Random House, Inc.
The Supreme Macaroni Company
Summary
For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This ancient business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past...and a secret. But after the wedding celebrations are over, Valentine wakes up to the hard reality of juggling the demands of a new business and the needs of her new family. Confronted with painful choices, Valentine remembers the wise words that inspired her in the early days of her beloved Angelini Shoe Company: "A person who can build a pair of shoes can do just about anything." Now, the proud, passionate Valentine is going to fight for everything she wants and savor all she deserves - the bitter and the sweet of life itself. Romantic and poignant, told with humor and warmth, and bursting with a cast of endearing characters, The Supreme Macaroni Company is an unforgettable narrative about family, work, romance, and the unexpected turns of life and fate.
©2013 The Glory of Everything Company (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers
Milk Glass Moon
Summary
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's best-selling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the listener. Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change. All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler. In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, listeners will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster who embraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.
©2002 Adriana Trigiani (P)2012 Random House Audio
Reunion Beach
Summary
In this warm and moving anthology, a group of best-selling authors and writers pay tribute to legendary, larger-than-life New York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank and her literary legacy. Inspired by the title Dorothea Benton Frank planned for her next book - Reunion Beach - these close friends and colleagues channeled their creativity, admiration, and grief into stories and poems that celebrate this remarkable woman and her abiding love for the Lowcountry of her native South Carolina - a land of beauty, history, charm, and Gullah magic she so brilliantly brought to life in her acclaimed novels. From Elin Hilderbrand, number-one New York Times best-selling author, a sequel to Summer of ’69. From Adriana Trigiani, New York Times best-selling author, comes a heartwarming, humorous interview from the hereafter with Pat Conroy and Dorothea Benton Frank, two beloved icons of Southern literature. From Patti Callahan, best-selling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis and Surviving Savannah, comes The Bridemaids, a story about a trip to the South Carolina beach. From Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best-selling author, Mother and Child Reunion, a heartwarming story set under the warm South Carolina sun. Reunion Beach also features letters, short stories, poems, and essays from: Mary Norris, New York Times best-selling author and staff writer for The New Yorker Cassandra King Conroy, best-selling and award-winning author of Tell Me A Story Nathalie Dupree, James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Marjory Wentworth, former Poet Laureate of South Carolina Gervais Hagerty, author of In Polite Company Jacqueline Bouvier Lee, Peter Frank, Victoria Peluso, and William Frank Infused with Dorothea Benton Frank’s remarkable spirit, Reunion Beach is a literary homage and beautiful keepsake that keeps this dearly missed writer’s flame burning bright. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
©2021 HarperCollins Publishers (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers
Very Valentine
Summary
Now a Lifetime original movie. “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 best-selling 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 listener 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.
©2009 Adriana Trigiani (P)2020 Random House Audio
Big Cherry Holler
Summary
Big Cherry Holler, the extraordinary sequel to Big Stone Gap, takes us back to the mountain life that enchanted us in Adriana Trigiani's best-selling debut novel. It's been eight years since the town pharmacist and long-time spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married coal miner Jack MacChesney. With her newfound belief in love and its possibilities, Ave Maria makes a life for herself and her growing family, hoping that her fearless leap into commitment will make happiness stay. What she didn't count on was that fate, life, and the ghosts of the past would come to haunt her and, eventually, test the love she has for her husband. The mountain walls that have protected her all of her life cannot spare Ave Maria the life lessons she must learn. Big Cherry Holler is the story of a marriage, revealing the deep secrets, the power struggle, the betrayal and the unmet expectations that exist between husband and wife. It is the story of a community that must reinvent itself as it comes to grips with the decline of the coal mining industry. It is the story of an extended family, the people of Big Stone Gap, who are there for one another especially when times are tough - including bookmobile librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, and Rescue Squad captain Spec Broadwater, who faces the complications of his double life. Ave Maria's best friend Theodore Tipton, now band director at the University of Tennessee, continues to be her chief counselor and conscience as he reaches the pinnacle of marching band success. When Ave Maria takes her daughter to Italy for the summer, she meets a handsome stranger who offers her a life beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ave Maria is forced to confront what is truly important: to her, to her marriage, and to her family. Brimming with humor, wisdom, honesty, and the drama and local color of mountain life from Virginia to Italy, Big Cherry Holler is a deeply felt, brilliantly evoked story of two lovers who have lost their way and their struggle to find each other again.
©2002 Adriana Trigiani (P)2012 Random House Audio
Don't Sing at the Table
Summary
"No one ever reads just one of Trigiani’s wonderfully quirky tales. Once you pick up the first, you are hooked.” (BookPage) New York Times best-selling author Adriana Trigiani shares a treasure trove of insight and guidance from her two grandmothers: time-tested, common sense advice on the most important aspects of a woman’s life, from childhood to the golden years. Seamlessly blending anecdote with life lesson, Don’t Sing at the Table tells the two vibrant women’s real-life stories - how they fell in love, nurtured their marriages, balanced raising children with being savvy businesswomen, and reinvented themselves with each new decade. For fans of Big Stone Gap, Very Valentine, Lucia, Lucia, and Rococo, this loving memoir is the Trigiani family recipe for chicken soup for the soul.
©2010 Adriana Trigiani (P)2020 Random House Audio
Brava, Valentine: A Novel
Summary
"Delightful, energetic.... Trigiani is a seemingly effortless storyteller." (Boston Globe) Award-winning playwright, television writer, and documentary filmmaker Adriana Trigiani returns with Brava, Valentine, continuing the heartwarming and hilarious story of Valentine Roncalli, her family, her love life, and the Angelini Shoe Company. Following on the heels of the New York Times best seller Very Valentine (hailed by People magazine as "Sex and the City meets Moonstruck"), Brava, Valentine is another tour-de-force from the beloved author of bestselling novels Lucia, Lucia, The Queen of the Big Time, and the Big Stone Gap series.
©2010 Adriana Trigiani (P)2020 Random House Audio
Lucia, Lucia
Summary
Lucia, Lucia is the enthralling story of a passionate, determined young woman whose decision to follow her heart changes her life forever. Lucia Sartori is the beautiful twenty-five-year-old daughter of a prosperous Italian grocer in Greenwich Village. The postwar boom is ripe with opportunities for talented girls with ambition, and Lucia becomes an apprentice to an up-and-coming designer at chic B. Altman's department store on Fifth Avenue. Engaged to her childhood sweetheart, the steadfast Dante DeMartino, Lucia is torn when she meets a handsome stranger who promises a life of uptown luxury that career girls like her only read about in the society pages. Forced to choose between duty to her family and her own dreams, Lucia finds herself in the midst of a sizzling scandal in which secrets are revealed, her beloved career is jeopardized, and the Sartoris' honor is tested. Lucia is surrounded by richly drawn New York characters, including her best friend, the quick-witted fashion protigi Ruth Kaspian; their boss, Delmarr, B. Altman's head designer and glamorous man-about-town; her devoted brothers, Roberto, Orlando, Angelo, and Exodus, self-appointed protectors of the jewel of the family; and her doting father, Antonio. Filled with the warmth and humor that have earned Adriana Trigiani hundreds of thousands of devoted readers with her Big Stone Gap trilogy, Lucia, Lucia also bursts with a New York sensibility that shows the depth and range of this beloved author. As richly detailed as the couture garments Lucia sews, as emotional as the bonds in her big Italian family, it is the story of one woman who believes that in a world brimming with so much promise, she can, and should be able to, have it all.
©2003 Adriana Trigiani (P)2003 Random House Inc., Random House Audio, a Division of Random House Inc.