Love & Gelato

In stories separated by nearly 20 years, both Hadley Emerson and her daughter, Lina, undergo a dramatic journey to self-discovery. During her first night in Florence, as she struggles to fall asleep, looking out over the rows of white cemetery crosses, Lina suddenly realizes she’s a stranger in a strange land, alone—a child who misses her mother. She’s traveled across the world to meet a father who looks nothing like her, and she has no idea who she is. Both Hadley and Lina depart for Italy at an age marked by the transition from childhood into adulthood. Both head to Florence unsure of themselves and what exactly they will experience. Neither has a good sense of themselves or their future: Hadley having rejected a career in nursing to pursue her dream career as a gallery photographer and Lina having lost the security and stability of her mother’s love and meeting a father who, she believes, rejected her 16 years earlier. In both cases, Italy, with its fabled environment of romance and magic, provides the setting for Hadley and Lina to discover and define who they are and what they want their lives to be.