Flight Lessons

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, resolved to remain unaffected by Rose’s longing to undo the past. But Anna’s resistance could blind her to a true and unexpected love that’s reaching out to grab her by the heart.

New York Times bestselling author patricia gaffney’s Flight Lessons is a poignant, funny, and wise story of truth, loyalty, and the bonds that shape, sustain, and ultimately uplift us.

Rating: (out of 18 reviews)

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Flight Lessons

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#1 written by Donna K. 1 year ago

Review by Donna K. for Flight Lessons
Rating:
As an Italian-American, and one who delights in the creative outlet of cooking, as well as the comfort of delicious food, I can’t resist a story set in an Italian restaurant. After experiencing heartbreak in her independent life hundreds of miles away from her hometown, Anna returns to help her aging aunts rejuvenate and revive their declining family restaurant. She was driven away years ago by a situation she interpreted as a deep betrayal in which she was unable to forgive the aunt who was responsible. Now, working together with Aunt Rose, and rediscovering the depths of family bonds, and the healing power of love, Anna arrives at a new and more enlightened view of the situation that once divided her family, and eventually learns to let go of past hurts and move forward from there.

In addition to the wonderful setting of this story, I loved the strong hardworking supporting characters, their interactions with each other, the themes of working together towards reconciliation and strengthening family bonds, and so much more. It’s a story about priorities; what’s important in one’s life.

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#2 written by P. Heaphy 1 year ago

Review by P. Heaphy for Flight Lessons
Rating:
First of all, I’m not quite sure why the cover shows a house on the beach, but that is basically irrelevent…

This is the story of 2 grown women, although more often than not, 36 year old Anna is acting like a petulant child, when she returns home to work in her aunt’s restaurant (after finding her lover in bed with her best friend). Anna harbors some deep resentment of her Aunt Rose, somewhat founded due to some infidelities in the past. The reader is clued in to Rose’s side of the story long before Anna finds out the truth.

A good deal of the book is about working in the family restaurant, and all the people who are considered “family” because of their employment there. The other, connected subplot is the romance of Anna and Mason, Rose and Theo. I actually felt these relationships should have been more fully developed. It seemed a little unrealistic to me that Mason would continue to desire Anna, seemingly without much in common, after she continuously pulls away from him.

The story, always in 3rd person, is told clearly from both Rose and Anna’s viewpoints in alternating chapters, and I thought Patricia Gaffney did an excellent job of articulating both sides, without making either woman the more sympathetic character. However, for me, the greatest flaw of this book was that I really couldn’t empathize with either of the women, until near the end.

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#3 written by C. Goodman 1 year ago

Review by C. Goodman for Flight Lessons
Rating:
I really liked “Saving Graces” by the same author, although it did make me sad at times (when it was supposed to).

I just finished “Flight Lessons”, and I really liked it. It’s about coming home, looking back, and moving forward. Anna and Rose are both people you’d like to be friends with, I think, and I could understand both of their motives, their reasons. The background type characters, like Frankie and Carmen, Theo and Mason, make you care about them too.

I actually put off reading my new Mary Higgins Clark novel, as well as Judith Michael’s latest, two of my favorite authors, to read this one.

I’ll be adding Patricia Gaffney to my list of authors to explore more.

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#4 written by Harriet Klausner 1 year ago

Review by Harriet Klausner for Flight Lessons
Rating:
In icy upstate New York, Anna Catalano ends her affair with her lover when she catches him with her boss in her bed just after she had outpatient laparascopy. When her Aunt Iris offers her the job of manager of Bella Sorella, Anna decides to accept on a temporary basis though she rarely has gone home to the Maryland Eastern Shore. Anna’s Aunt Rose, whom she caught in bed with her father while her mother was dying from ovarian cancer, owns the restaurant. The aunt and the niece are banally civil, but truly communicate through Iris.Restaurant management proves difficult, but Anna handles it with aplomb. However, she has more trouble coping with her feelings towards photographer Mason Winograd, as she does not trust relationships. More complex and harder on Anna’s soul is Rose wants a reconciliation with her beloved niece and will do whatever it takes to succeed.FLIGHT LESSONS is a wonderful relationship drama that is at its best when the women take center stage without any males in their way though the men are well written characters. The story line engages the reader by looking at the impact a long-term squabble has on individuals. The Rose-Anna situation is cleverly written so that many readers will recognize similar relationships with family members. However, the romance between Anna and Mason never leaves the ground, as it seems pale next to that of the women. Patricia Gaffney provides a strong character driven sequel to her best selling THE SAVING GRACES.Harriet Klausner

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#5 written by Kcolorado 1 year ago

Review by Kcolorado for Flight Lessons
Rating:
The Oscar Wilde quote, “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations” that Patrica Gaffney prefaces her book with, is an accurate description of the issues she explores in Flight Lessons. In a twist to the biblical prodigal son, Anna returns to her hometown on the Chesapeake bay at the age of 36 and after a disasterous end to a romantic relationship. Anna is a complex, and often quite exasperating character. She is balanced in the book by her aunt Rose, now 60 and the owner of a faltering Italian restaurant. Anna is welcomed home and agrees to manage the restaurant for the summer but is not ready to forgive and forget the family issues that caused her to leave. Rose is a more appealing character, particularly in regard to her relationship with Theo, a crusty Bay waterman, now sidelined with a degenerative disease. All of the characters are finely drawn, Frankie, the talented but troubled new chef at the restaurant, Eddie, the handsome but unreliable bartender and Carmen,the unmarried, overweight long time chef who is resentful of the new chef and the changes Anna wants to make to save the restaurant.The close up look at running a small family restaurant was particularly interesting and the bits of information about birds and bird photography, the avocation of Mason, another character were engrossing. (I will now try to catch a bird yawnings, soemthing I never knew they did) More than a love story, the book is honest and insightful as it explore the complicated dynamics of family and the ways individuals address their own family history. Anna’s apparent dysfunction and inabilty to sustain relationships seems as much due to her own unforgiving nature as the tough issues she dealt with as a child and young woman. Our desire to paint family members as either black or white, good or bad is illuminated as Anna addresses her memories of her mother and father as well as Rose. More than a good summer read, the book has enough interest to make your reading list in any season.

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