Disclaimer: This review contains all the spoilers and nonsensical rambly rage. I promise my writing is more eloquent than this. Consider it a holiday gift. Enjoy.

ICK ICK ICKITY ICK!

Let me just start there.

I’ve read a few disappointing books in 2023, but nothing really compares to the utter ire I felt after finishing Josie Silver’s “A Winter in New York.” I have been spending most of December listening to easy-going Holiday romances/comedies after finishing Fourth Wing and Iron Flame, and I knew that they would be cheesy, but this book by Silver was just beyond awful.

Where do I begin?

Let’s start at …. the beginning. Iris, a 30-something who just moved to New York, runs into some broody guy at the bookstore on Valentine’s Day. They both reach for the same book (sounds like some smutty fantasy book), but the dude gets to it first. Iris thinks this fella will let her have the book (it’s the last one) and he doesn’t. They have some cringy back and forth, and Iris tells the dude, who is wearing a wedding ring, to go home to his wife (or something … I can’t really remember). The guy, who notices she’s also wearing a ring, says the same to her. Iris then yells “MY HUSBAND IS DEAD!” and stalks away, leaving this guy standing there.

So here’s why Iris moves from London to New York. Her mother died a few years back, she has escaped from an abusive ex (not a dead husband like she told the bookstore guy), and she is starting over in the Big Apple. She decides to go to the city her mother loved and retraces her footsteps, trying to feel a connection and scatter her ashes. Her mother, Vivien was a famous (?) wannabe famous (?) singer in a band, and told Iris that her time in New York was beyond special.

Fast forward a few months later, and Iris and her stereotypically written gay friend Bobby are walking around at a festival when she comes across a stained glass door she recognizes from her mom’s photographs. So she goes in, and discovers it’s a gelataria. She tries to order some gelato, and the dude at the counter (Gio) tells her they don’t have gelato right now. He eventually confides in her that his uncle (who is like a father to him and raised him) had a stroke and he’s in the hospital and he’s the only one that remembers the family recipe so there’s no gelato. Not the best business model, but OK.

Iris eventually discovers that the gelataria belongs to the Belotti family, and makes the connection that Santos (the uncle) was Iris’s mom’s true love, who she left behind in New York to continue touring with her band. Gio’s dad, brother to Santos, was in the band with Iris’s mom. So, that’s how Viv and the love of her life met.

Iris soon realizes that Santos gave her mother the sacred gelato recipe – the one Iris and her mother have been making for her entire life (she’s a chef, btw).

OK, so she has the recipe that the shop needs. Rather than just give them the recipe and explain the situation to Gio she offers to help and goes there for MONTHS pretending to help him perfect the recipe because she’s a chef. She literally goes there for MONTHS when all she had to do was give Gio the napkin.

She does not tell Gio the connection between their families. She gets closer to the Belottis and closer and closer to Gio … who turns out to be … THE DUDE FROM THE BOOKSTORE.

OK SO. TURNS OUT … Gio’s wife actually died. Gio remembered her from the bookstore. He apologized to Iris for HIS BEHAVIOR and that he understood the grief Iris felt. And she never CORRECTS HIM. She never tells him her husband didn’t die and that he’s just an abusive ex that she’s trying to avoid in a different country.

So Iris sucks, right? And here’s her reason for being a pathological liar:

She did not want to betray her mother’s secret by showing them the napkin.

She also didn’t want to fess up that she LIED about her husband dying (ex-boyfriend, not even married) because she doesn’t want to be called out for it.

She says: “Her mother’s secret isn’t hers to tell.” OK, so, who is going to tell it?

Basically, this absolute awful human being is lying to a family, watching their beloved family business deteriorate, for the silliest reason ever. This woman is actually the worst. The worst. And Gio is an actual saint (aside from not letting Iris have the book at the bookstore but honestly, he picked up good vibes there).

So Gio, despite still grieving the loss of his wife, falls in love with this monster and she continues to spend months with his family, pretending to tinker with a gelato recipe, going to their parties and being the absolute worst. She falls in love with Gio too and doesn’t want to tell him the truth because he will never speak to her again. Nice.

Gio’s dad eventually shows up and immediately recognizes Iris as Vivien’s daughter beause they both have “cornflower eyes” and she’s her spitting image. Gio’s dad calls her out and says, if you don’t tell Gio I will … because Gio is an actual angel and doesn’t deserve this shit at all.

So Iris sits on this for like weeks, ghosting Gio a few times, etc. Classic adult behavior.

Then, Santos comes home and he’s like OKAY you are Vivien’s daughter, but “it’s my secret.” Santos was dating Maria (his now longtime wife and classic Italian matriarch) at the time he was hooking up with Vivien. He tells Iris she should tell him right away because they don’t keep secrets in the Belotti family (?).

Few things there:

• The recipe is literally a secret. Only two people can know at one time and they don’t share it with anyone else. So … OK no secrets in your family. Right, Santos.
  
• You literally cheated on your wife and been keeping that a secret for 100 years.

OK so it’s Christmas, Iris is at the Belotti’s house having the time of her life. She is all warm and loved and finally understands what a family is (she’s so freaking unstable), and she goes outside to give Santos the napkin with the recipe.

After silence and watching him smoke a cigar (so stereotypically Italian) Santos basically tells Iris to leave New York ASAP. Don’t tell Gio the truth and just ditch. He doesn’t want to share his secret either. K.

So Iris decides to listen to Santos and LEAVE. She packs up her stuff that night and GOES TO SLEEP IN GIO’S FATHER’S STORAGE UNIT. GIO’S FATHER GIVES HER THE KEYS AND PAYS FOR THE UNIT TO HAVE ELECTRICITY UNTIL THE NEW YEAR.

Iris sees this as wonderfully kind hospitality and I see it as absolutely horrendous. Let’s hide away the patriarch’s dirty secret. So so cringe.

Before she goes into hiding like a trapped animal, Iris writes Gio a note and tells him she’s leaving because she lied about her husband dying and that he found out where she lives and Gio’s daughter might be compromised because of it and feels bad (not the whole truth at all, Iris, wtf), and then bounces.

A couple of days later, Gio tearfully storms in the storage unit (we aren’t really told how he found out), and then after a long hug, they decide to talk about their relationship on NYE. Literally the most ridiculous thing ever, but alright.

NYE rolls around and Adam (her abusive ex boyfriend) SHOWS UP AT HER APARTMENT while she’s waiting for Gio. So Iris is trapped like a bird in a cage until her doorbell starts ringing and she sees that the ENTIRE Belotti family shows up to tell Iris they love her, she’s part of the family, and to stay in New York.

After some back and forth, Gio punches Adam in the face, the entire Belotti family proclaim that she’s a part of their family and Adam needs to stay away and then Gio forgives Iris for EVERYTHING. Turns out Santos told the family the truth and everyone is OK with it. Not like the Italians I know. We hold grudges for decades. And Iris and Gio live happily ever after.

On Valentine’s Day, HE GIVES HER A SPECIAL COPY OF THE BOOK HE TOOK AT THE BOOKSTORE. I almost vomited.

A few questions for Gio:

• Do we need to have a chat about self-worth? I only ask because Iris is an actual monster and told unforgivable lies. You seem like a literal angel and I just cannot fathom why you’d settle for this sociopath.
  
• Also are you … not upset your uncle pulled a Godfather and told Iris to leave the city and never come back in order to protect his own ass?
  
• And … what about your dad giving Iris keys to his storage unit to keep her in a cage like a wild animal? How …? How are these things OK? How is Iris OK with this in the end? I’d stay the f away from those men.

If you think that I just made a book up … I did not. This all really happened. It is the most far-fetched, unrealistic, silliest and most infuriating thing I’ve ever read. Don’t read it.

I am so sick of the unrealistic lying trope where a partner gets away with awful lies. Authors can make a romance novel have conflicts without amplifying and normalizing red flag behavior.

I’m just not about it. Delacorte Press and all publishers and all authors: do better.