From Publishers Weekly
Alone in a chilly loft in upstate New York, ruing the end of her affair with a two-timing sculptor, Anna Catalano, the heroine of this follow-up to Gaffney's bestselling The Saving Graces, can't resist an invitation to return home to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Her aunt Rose desperately needs a manager for her restaurant, the Bella Sorella, and it has to be family, says intermediary Aunt Iris. Rose and Anna haven't actually been on speaking terms since Anna caught Rose having an affair with Anna's father while her mother was dying. Still, telling herself it's only temporary, Anna signs on for the job. A host of clangorous, adrenaline-pumping kitchen scenes follow, and anyone who's worked in the restaurant business will especially enjoy the clash between the self-taught red-sauce chef and Anna's new hire, a culinary school grad who wants to put pesto in the minestrone. But Gaffney is unaccountably less apt in charting the romance between Anna and a bird-loving lawyer-turned-photographer named Mason Winograd, who must overcome his fear of flying as Anna overcomes her fear of nesting. Their e-mails, while blessedly free of emoticons and tech talk, are too long and too similar in voice. A delicious first kiss leads to a flat full monty: "He got her undressed and then went in the bathroom and came back nude, with condoms." In contrast, the affair between Rose and the dying Theo, Mason's stepfather, is richly nuanced, as are the relationships among the many women in the cast.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
After catching her boyfriend in bed with her boss, Anna Catalano decides to return to her childhood home. Ironically, an infidelity she witnessed between her aunt and her father 16 years earlier is exactly what drove her away in the first place. Once home, Anna begins the emotional metamorphosis from blame and alienation to forgiveness and acceptance. What results isn't exactly fast-paced, but readers will savor each well-written page and root for the sympathetic, authentic characters despite their flaws. Gaffney serves everything in double helpings: two acts of infidelity, two wounded heroes, two prodigal son stories. All of this is set against the microcosm of a small, family-owned Italian restaurant. Fans of Curtiss Ann Matlock's Driving Lessons, Kathleen Gilles Seidel's Till the Stars Fall, and Gaffney's other novels (e.g., The Saving Graces) will find this new work just as delectable. This is women's fiction at its finest, and public libraries of all sizes will want it for their collections. - Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
After a devastating breakup, Anna Catalano reluctantly agrees to return to Maryland's Eastern Shore to become the manager of her Aunt Rose's restaurant, the Bella Sorella. Anna and Rose have been estranged for years because of what Anna sees as Rose's betrayal, and Anna must overcome her childish resentment to make a new life for herself. Jennifer Van Dyck's soft soprano excels with the humorous scenes between the restaurant's self-taught, gorgon of a chef and the new hire, a culinary-school graduate with adventurous tastes. But Van Dyck is often inaudible when voicing the male characters. Gaffney's strength once again lies in her presentation of relationships between women. E.J.F. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Gaffney continues to explore female family bonds and plumb the depths at which they affect people years later. At 36, Anna Catalano is going home to the Eastern Shore of Maryland after finding her boyfriend in bed with her boss and best friend. For some reason she is more upset with her friend than with her boyfriend, maybe because history seems to be repeating itself. Anna walked in on her father and her aunt Rosa in the same position 20 years ago, and even though her mother was dead, Anna could never forgive Rosa, the guiding force in her life, although she did absolve her father. Now Anna is returning to help Rosa run the family restaurant, having flitted from job to job and man to man all this time. Rosa is relieved to have Anna back because coping with her boyfriend's degenerative disease leaves her little time for the restaurant, but her relationship with her niece remains stormy. To Anna, Rosa's betrayal seems like a cancer of the soul, and she persists in believing that her aunt is the cause of all her troubles. The two women skirt the issue as Anna childishly refuses to recognize what her aunt, home, and restaurant truly mean to her. Filled with touching insights into family relationships, and the way family brings out the best and worst in people, Gaffney's latest will increase her already notable popularity. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Saving Graces and Circle of Three comes the poignant story of two women struggling to come to terms with the past that haunts them both.For sixteen years Anna has studiously avoided her Aunt Rose. Exchanging cards at holiday time -- that's as far as Anna is willing to go with the woman she once loved more than anyone else in the world. That love died the night Rose betrayed Anna and her mother -- Rose's own fatally ill sister -- and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years have passed since she's been back to her hometown on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Rose still runs the aging family restaurant, the Bella Sorella. Anna has built a life elsewhere with a job she likes and a man she loves. Or so she thought.The problem, or one of them, was that circumstances had split her life down the middle. She was always of two minds, the hopeful half versus the skeptic, optimist against pessimist. Or maybe it had evened out and she was now a relativist, a contingency artist. Either way, it didn't help that at this late date a theme was taking shape -- a motif or whatever you wanted to call it, a pattern -- consisting of Anna walking in on trusted loved ones in bed with each other.Anna clearly needs an escape, but the only place for her to go is home: to the family, to the restaurant, to Rose, who has been trying for more than a decade to regain Anna's trust. And right now Rose needs her more than ever. Feelings between the two women remain as chilly as ever, even in the steamy kitchen of the Bella Sorella, where values clash and generations collide -- and outside it, where their personal lives become entangled in surprising ways. Anna is a reluctant partner in this intricate dance of forgiveness and reconciliation, insisting that her stay is only temporary. Her plan is to leave a second time, as soon as the restaurant is back on its feet and her own hurt is healed. But her determination to remain unaffected by Rose's longing to undo the past and create a future blinds Anna to a chance for human connection and she almost fails to recognize true love, even when it reaches in and grabs her by the heart.Touching, funny, poignant, and wise,Flight Lessons is a moving story of truth and loyalty, of the bonds that shape and sustain us and, ultimately, uplift us. Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, filled with the recognition of self and reminding us that there's no place like home.


Download Description
"E-Book Extra: Keeping Good Company: An Interview with Patricia Gaffney. Since her aunt Rose betrayed her, and her fatally ill mother, Anna has studiously avoided her Maryland hometown. But a fresh betrayal by a faithless lover lands Anna back in the family restaurant where she must save the business and face the past - or risk losing true love. From the extraordinary Patricia Gaffney, New York Times bestselling author of The Saving Graces and Circle of Three, comes a poignant and wise story of truth and loyalty, of the bonds that shape, sustain, and ultimately uplift us. Anna has studiously avoided her aunt Rose - the woman she once loved more than anyone else in the world - ever since the night Rose betrayed Anna and her mother, Rose's own fatally ill sister. In the sixteen years that have passed, Anna has built another life for herself far from her hometown on Maryland's Eastern Shore, but she can't forgive or forget. Now another betrayal, by a faithless lover, has brought Anna back to her family's restaurant, where Rose needs her estranged niece's help - and trust - more than ever before. Determined to leave as soon as the struggling business is back on its feet and her own hurt is healed, Anna joins Rose in the kitchen of the Bella Sorella, where values clash and generations collide - and outside, where their personal lives become entangled in surprising ways. Yet Anna is resolved to remain unaffected by Rose's longing to undo the past - even though her resistance could blind her to a true and unexpected love that's reaching out to grab her by the heart.


About the Author
Patricia Gaffney was born in Tampa, Florida, the younger of the two children of Joem and Jim Gaffney.With her brother Mike, she grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., and graduated from Walter Johnson High School.She earned a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and also studied literature at Royal Holloway College of the University of London, at George Washington University, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.After college, Gaffney taught 12th grade English at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, "for one excruciating year.The kids were great, but they were bigger than me and I was scared of them."Returning to Chapel Hill, instead of finishing her master's degree in education, she took a job as a freelance court reporter, and pursued that career in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., for the next fifteen years.In January of 1984, Gaffney discovered a malignant lump in her breast."I was positive I was dying; I gave myself five years.Time to decide, and fast, what to do with the rest of my too-short life."In the end, the decision was easy because it was what she'd always wanted to do: write books and live in the country.In 1986, she and her husband left Washington and moved to rural southern Pennsylvania, where they live today.There Gaffney began the first of what would be twelve published historical romance novels.The first, Sweet Treason, appeared in 1989 and won the Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart as well as other first-book awards.Six of her novels have been nominated for RWA Rita awards, and Wild at Heart (1997) was among ten finalists for the reader-nominated Favorite Book of the Year Award.After a dozen books, Gaffney says she began to feel restless."I'd run out of stories I wanted to tell in the context of historical romance.And I had an urge to put more of myself in my novels.I'll always tell stories, but now I wanted to change the truth/fantasy ratio, weight it more toward my real life."In June of 1999, HarperCollins published The Saving Graces, Gaffney's hardcover fiction debut."Real life" definitely played a part in this story of four women friends, one of whom battles a cancer recurrence."I've belonged to the same women's group for almost 20 years.Eight years ago, we lost one of our members to breast cancer.The Saving Graces tells her story, not mine."More than that, it explores issues of love, friendship, trust, and commitment among women.Gaffney says she hopes it speaks to the universal experience of women blessed with the gift of close friendships.The Saving Graces enjoyed bestseller status on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and other national lists.Circle of Three was Gaffney's second hardcover novel, published by HarperCollins in June of 2000.The protagonist is a member of the "sandwich generation," a woman who both has a mother and a daughter and is a mother and a daughter.Gaffney explores the reality of women's lives in the context of three generations, grandmother, mother, and daughter.Told in alternating viewpoints, the women wrestle with issues of grief and guilt, aging and growing up, reconciling with old loves and finding new ones.In July of 2002, HarperCollins will publish Flight Lessons.Set in a small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Flight Lessons is the story of 30-something Anna Catalano who comes home, after a long self-exile, to help run the Bella Sorella, the family Italian restaurant.Once again the focus is family, both Anna's real one as well as the Bella Sorella's steamy, chaotic, metaphorical family.Sins are committed and forgiven, hearts broken and healed.Gaffney explores favorite themes in this book about food, family, and forgiveness.Patricia Gaffney is currently at work on her fourth novel for HarperCollins.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Though Anna once adored her aunt Rose, that ended when she betrayed Anna and her mother — Rose's terminally ill sister — and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years later, her own heart broken, Anna returns home to Rose, and to the family restaurant, the Bella Sorella, now grown shabby with age.Anna is still reluctant to forgive Rose, insisting that her stay is temporary. But the intimacy of working with Rose to put the Bella Sorella back on its feet, and an unexpected chance at true love, bring about a change of heart.

Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, reminding us that there's no place like home.

SYNOPSIS

E-Book Extra: Keeping Good Company: An Interview with Patricia Gaffney

Since her aunt Rose betrayed her, and her fatally ill mother, Anna has studiously avoided her Maryland hometown. But a fresh betrayal by a faithless lover lands Anna back in the family restaurant where she must save the business and face the past -- or risk losing true love.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Alone in a chilly loft in upstate New York, ruing the end of her affair with a two-timing sculptor, Anna Catalano, the heroine of this follow-up to Gaffney's bestselling The Saving Graces, can't resist an invitation to return home to Maryland's Eastern Shore. Her aunt Rose desperately needs a manager for her restaurant, the Bella Sorella, and it has to be family, says intermediary Aunt Iris. Rose and Anna haven't actually been on speaking terms since Anna caught Rose having an affair with Anna's father while her mother was dying. Still, telling herself it's only temporary, Anna signs on for the job. A host of clangorous, adrenaline-pumping kitchen scenes follow, and anyone who's worked in the restaurant business will especially enjoy the clash between the self-taught red-sauce chef and Anna's new hire, a culinary school grad who wants to put pesto in the minestrone. But Gaffney is unaccountably less apt in charting the romance between Anna and a bird-loving lawyer-turned-photographer named Mason Winograd, who must overcome his fear of flying as Anna overcomes her fear of nesting. Their e-mails, while blessedly free of emoticons and tech talk, are too long and too similar in voice. A delicious first kiss leads to a flat full monty: "He got her undressed and then went in the bathroom and came back nude, with condoms." In contrast, the affair between Rose and the dying Theo, Mason's stepfather, is richly nuanced, as are the relationships among the many women in the cast. (Aug. 1) Forecast: The beachfront jacket scene will attract August vacationers, but this comes out a bit too late in the summer to be a full-fledged beach book. Expect blockbuster sales anyway The Saving Graces has sold more than a million copies. 8-city author tour. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

After catching her boyfriend in bed with her boss, Anna Catalano decides to return to her childhood home. Ironically, an infidelity she witnessed between her aunt and her father 16 years earlier is exactly what drove her away in the first place. Once home, Anna begins the emotional metamorphosis from blame and alienation to forgiveness and acceptance. What results isn't exactly fast-paced, but readers will savor each well-written page and root for the sympathetic, authentic characters despite their flaws. Gaffney serves everything in double helpings: two acts of infidelity, two wounded heroes, two prodigal son stories. All of this is set against the microcosm of a small, family-owned Italian restaurant. Fans of Curtiss Ann Matlock's Driving Lessons, Kathleen Gilles Seidel's Till the Stars Fall, and Gaffney's other novels (e.g., The Saving Graces) will find this new work just as delectable. This is women's fiction at its finest, and public libraries of all sizes will want it for their collections. - Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

AudioFile

If you like the idea of navigating through life without a sextant or compass, you'll enjoy Patricia Gaffney's story of a middle-aged woman's search in all the wrong places to unravel the mystery of her fear of settling down. The writing is thoughtful and thought-provoking, and Laura Hicks is flawless in her performance of the lost, stuck Anna; the misleadingly sugary-sweet Aunt Rose; Rose's feisty dying lover, Theo; and the equally lost, wounded hero-in-progress, Mason. M.D.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews