The Savage Heart of Palermo – Daniel Kenyon

Publisher: KeywordsPlus

Kindle ebook

This book came to my attention on Friday thanks to a friend of mine, Ingrid.  I have spent some of the weekend devouring this book which I thoroughly enjoyed because I just had to know what happened to the characters.

Daniel Kenyon is an English author, from Sheffield who now lives in Palermo.

Kenyon makes Palermo come alive, there were so many descriptions that I adored.  One example is how he described gelato ‘as a small piece of heaven on earth’.

The story starts with an American (Joe) leaving Chicago, because he is in a bit of a sticky situation and deciding to choose Sicily as his mother was Sicilian.  He ends up making some good friends and some bad ones, as well as meeting his mother’s family.  Two feuding mafia families are involved in the story.  As I have already stated I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I found it hard to put it down, wondering what was going to happen next.

It was a timely read for me, as late last week, one of my students was telling me about the patron saint of Palermo, Santa Rosalina.

Sicily just went further up my wish list of places to visit here in Italy!