Hill Towns - Softcover

Catherine "Cat" Gaillard narrates her own story, beginning with a gothic childhood of the sort that inspires folk ballads and tasteless jokes. Orphaned at age 5 when her parents are killed in a freakish accident, Cat chooses to live on Morgan's Mountain as the ward of chilly, crazy grandparents, though saner family members are willing to take her in. She reasons that, "From there I would always know what was coming. From there I would see it long before it saw me."

The rest of the story follows Cat and her husband, Joe, on their journey of midlife discovery. They both flirt with the possibility of an affair, they bicker, challenge assumptions, make new friends, drink too much, eat fabulous food, and tour Rome, Florence, and Venice. It's like being there. Siddons lets you inhabit Cat's mind and experience her struggle to overcome agoraphobia, her uncertainties about Joe, and, most of all, her neophyte-traveler's view of Italy. Hill Towns is an exploration of a mature relationship, but it's also an effective travelogue. Read it and see if you don't start to crave caffé granita on the piazza. --Brenda Pittsley

A single traumatic event in her childhood irrevocably marked Catherine Gaillard, leaving her stranded in her cloistered mountaintop Tennessee town for thirty years. But now she is embarking upon a life-changing trip to Italy with her husband, Joe, hoping to put the incident behind her forever. As they make their way across the breathtaking countryside of Tuscany with two other couples, Cat and Joe soon feel themselves being pulled in separate directions, and the fabric of their marriage begins to unravel. And a journey that began as a carefree tour crosses unexpected boundaries, carrying them deep into the heart of their relationship, becoming the ultimate test of their love.