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Dancing on Sunday Afternoons
Reading letters written to her grandmother decades before, Cara Serafini finally learns the great secret, the triumph, of Giulia's life - the love she shared with her first husband, Paolo.
It's a love that began when Giulia left the Italian village of her birth and came to New York, where Paolo Serafini captured her heart...and took her dancing on Sunday afternoons.
And as Cara discovers, it's a love that's never ended - and never will.
- GenresRomanceHistoricalFiction
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 1, 2007
3 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Linda Cardillo
29 books46 followersLINDA CARDILLO is an award-winning author of historical fiction and historical romance. She writes about the old country and the new, the tangle and embrace of family, and finding courage in the midst of loss.
From the time she was in high school, Linda held in her heart the dream of writing the Great American Novel. But she was also brought up to know that she had to be “practical” and make a living. After graduating from college, she found a job as a secretary at a venerable Boston publishing house (barely passing the typing test). Within a year she had moved into an editorial position for college textbooks in the sciences and social sciences. It still wasn’t the Great American Novel, but she got to immerse herself in American intellectual and social history.
After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School—where she wrote comedy for the annual student musical and performed in a platinum blonde wig while seven months pregnant—she got divorced and gave birth. She then became circulation manager for the launch of Inc. magazine and got a crash course in magazine marketing. Unfortunately, she also crashed head-on into her boss and got fired a year after the magazine’s successful start.
Around this time she got an invitation to her tenth college reunion, signed up to attend and fell in love with a man she hadn’t seen since freshman year. On an excursion to a zoo, her son got carsick and threw up. This wonderful man calmly got him out of the car, cleaned him up and took him for a walk in the fresh air, and she knew she had a keeper.
Linda and the keeper moved to Germany for a few years with their children. While living in Europe, she received an unexpected gift of love letters that became the seeds for her first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.
Linda has been married for over forty years to the keeper, a brilliant scientist and sailor, and is the mother of three children of whom she is enormously proud. She loves to cook and is happiest when the twelve chairs around her dining room table are filled with people enjoying her food. She speaks four languages, some better than others. She tries to play the piano every night—sometimes by herself and sometimes in an improvisational duet with her younger son. She does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, a practice she learned from her mother. From her mother she also absorbed a love of opera, especially those of Puccini and Verdi, whose music filled her home when she was a child. She once climbed Mt. Kenya and has very curly hair. Linda and the keeper live in Western Massachusetts.
From the time she was in high school, Linda held in her heart the dream of writing the Great American Novel. But she was also brought up to know that she had to be “practical” and make a living. After graduating from college, she found a job as a secretary at a venerable Boston publishing house (barely passing the typing test). Within a year she had moved into an editorial position for college textbooks in the sciences and social sciences. It still wasn’t the Great American Novel, but she got to immerse herself in American intellectual and social history.
After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School—where she wrote comedy for the annual student musical and performed in a platinum blonde wig while seven months pregnant—she got divorced and gave birth. She then became circulation manager for the launch of Inc. magazine and got a crash course in magazine marketing. Unfortunately, she also crashed head-on into her boss and got fired a year after the magazine’s successful start.
Around this time she got an invitation to her tenth college reunion, signed up to attend and fell in love with a man she hadn’t seen since freshman year. On an excursion to a zoo, her son got carsick and threw up. This wonderful man calmly got him out of the car, cleaned him up and took him for a walk in the fresh air, and she knew she had a keeper.
Linda and the keeper moved to Germany for a few years with their children. While living in Europe, she received an unexpected gift of love letters that became the seeds for her first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.
Linda has been married for over forty years to the keeper, a brilliant scientist and sailor, and is the mother of three children of whom she is enormously proud. She loves to cook and is happiest when the twelve chairs around her dining room table are filled with people enjoying her food. She speaks four languages, some better than others. She tries to play the piano every night—sometimes by herself and sometimes in an improvisational duet with her younger son. She does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, a practice she learned from her mother. From her mother she also absorbed a love of opera, especially those of Puccini and Verdi, whose music filled her home when she was a child. She once climbed Mt. Kenya and has very curly hair. Linda and the keeper live in Western Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 20, 2023
At around chapter four of Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, I had an epiphany. This book would make a gripping and enchanting movie. It is one of the most visually seductive novels I’ve read in a long time. Page after page, Cardillo creates evocative vignettes that play in the reader’s head as scenes on the big screen. Visually, it reminded me of nothing so much as the Godfather movies.
Once I had the epiphany, I kept turning pages and inside my head I was screaming “SCREENPLAY, SCREENPLAY”, but Cardillo probably couldn’t hear me.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let me tell you how much I liked this book. I was transported to a world completely foreign to me, replete with fascinating, colorful characters, lush scenery, and emotions that, instead of staying in a character’s head, are played out as quiet, understated action sequences. Yet I felt completely at home with these old world characters. I felt the sadness inherent in one generation moving to the new world, leaving everything behind, possibly never to see their families again. I was angered by the brutality of factory work in early 20th Century New York. I saw the fear, brutality, and courage that characterized the early labor movement. I was charmed by Giulia’s rebelliousness, and the simmering sexual tension of youth. I yearned for the characters to find happiness in what must have been a very frightening new country. I experienced the joy, love, hate, pain, and tragedy that characterize all great epic stories. I cried more than once. In short, I was captivated throughout.
Surely this story is at least somewhat autobiographical. Cardillo clearly has a deep passion for understanding and recreating the distant origins of her Italian heritage.
My final advice to Cardillo is to pitch a screenplay. I want to see Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, the movie, on the big screen by around 2018, up for several Academy Awards.
Once I had the epiphany, I kept turning pages and inside my head I was screaming “SCREENPLAY, SCREENPLAY”, but Cardillo probably couldn’t hear me.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let me tell you how much I liked this book. I was transported to a world completely foreign to me, replete with fascinating, colorful characters, lush scenery, and emotions that, instead of staying in a character’s head, are played out as quiet, understated action sequences. Yet I felt completely at home with these old world characters. I felt the sadness inherent in one generation moving to the new world, leaving everything behind, possibly never to see their families again. I was angered by the brutality of factory work in early 20th Century New York. I saw the fear, brutality, and courage that characterized the early labor movement. I was charmed by Giulia’s rebelliousness, and the simmering sexual tension of youth. I yearned for the characters to find happiness in what must have been a very frightening new country. I experienced the joy, love, hate, pain, and tragedy that characterize all great epic stories. I cried more than once. In short, I was captivated throughout.
Surely this story is at least somewhat autobiographical. Cardillo clearly has a deep passion for understanding and recreating the distant origins of her Italian heritage.
My final advice to Cardillo is to pitch a screenplay. I want to see Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, the movie, on the big screen by around 2018, up for several Academy Awards.
August 5, 2019
I was attending a book signing event and a woman sat down beside me while I was sorting my books to be signed by various authors. We got to talking and she asked if I had read any of her books. I'm looking at her name tag and it has "Volunteer" on a ribbon under her name. I was confused and caught off guard, to say the least. I immediately open up the Goodreads app and come to find out I had read 1 of her books, "The Smallest Christmas Tree". We chatted a bit about some of her books and then she talked about "Dancing on Sunday Afternoons". I had the pleasure of getting the author's notes, as well as an almost direct quote from near the end of the book, directly from the author (I didn't know that until I read it). I was so intrigued from what she told me that I went to the event's store and bought the book immediately.
I was NOT disappointed.
I've read 1 book that was mostly letters back and forth between 2 people. I don't care for them. This book wasn't like that at all.
This book is of a time period I'm not too familiar with—pre WW1 but it was fascinating! I lean toward historical fiction because it's like a history lesson with a bonus, the bonus being the characters and the main character, Giulia, WAS a character. She was a stubborn and somewhat of a devilish child, not in a bad way, she just wouldn't "conform" to what was expected of her. She was sent from her town in Italy to America to live with her brother, where she was not exactly welcomed with open arms, but would hopefully stay out of trouble. Let's just say that family sometimes isn't all that it's cracked up to be—Giulia's family was good and bad and even somewhere in between at times.
Giulia and Paolo weren't to be together, and that's where the secret love begins, and the letters. But Giulia's and Paolo's love for each other was enduring and everlasting. Through hardship and heartache, their love just kept getting stronger. Even though he had to travel for work (he worked for the IWW union during the 1912 Lawrence textile strike aka Bread and Roses strike), he wrote her letters telling her what was happening and how much he loved her. Their love never faltered, it just grew stronger with every breath. That's just part of the story. There is so much more, but I can't comment more for fear of spoilers.
Giulia tells her granddaughter, Cara, her story, and the secret love that led to her love of a lifetime.
Cara finds a bit of herself also, which is to say she comes into her own a little later in life and grows from what Giulia shared with her. To fully understand the secret love, the romance and the history, you have to read "Dancing on Sunday Afternoons".
I was NOT disappointed.
I've read 1 book that was mostly letters back and forth between 2 people. I don't care for them. This book wasn't like that at all.
This book is of a time period I'm not too familiar with—pre WW1 but it was fascinating! I lean toward historical fiction because it's like a history lesson with a bonus, the bonus being the characters and the main character, Giulia, WAS a character. She was a stubborn and somewhat of a devilish child, not in a bad way, she just wouldn't "conform" to what was expected of her. She was sent from her town in Italy to America to live with her brother, where she was not exactly welcomed with open arms, but would hopefully stay out of trouble. Let's just say that family sometimes isn't all that it's cracked up to be—Giulia's family was good and bad and even somewhere in between at times.
Giulia and Paolo weren't to be together, and that's where the secret love begins, and the letters. But Giulia's and Paolo's love for each other was enduring and everlasting. Through hardship and heartache, their love just kept getting stronger. Even though he had to travel for work (he worked for the IWW union during the 1912 Lawrence textile strike aka Bread and Roses strike), he wrote her letters telling her what was happening and how much he loved her. Their love never faltered, it just grew stronger with every breath. That's just part of the story. There is so much more, but I can't comment more for fear of spoilers.
Giulia tells her granddaughter, Cara, her story, and the secret love that led to her love of a lifetime.
Cara finds a bit of herself also, which is to say she comes into her own a little later in life and grows from what Giulia shared with her. To fully understand the secret love, the romance and the history, you have to read "Dancing on Sunday Afternoons".
December 5, 2018
My love for you grows day by day and nothing can stop it, not even the anger and disapproval of your family...
Reading these words, written to her grandmother decades before, Cara Serafini finally learns the great secret, the triumph, of Giulia's life - the love she shared with her first husband, Paolo.
It's a love that began when Giulia left the Italian village of her birth and came to New York, where Paolo Serafini captured her heart...and took her dancing on Sunday afternoons.
And as Cara discovers, it's a love that's never ended - and never will.
everlasting #1
Reading these words, written to her grandmother decades before, Cara Serafini finally learns the great secret, the triumph, of Giulia's life - the love she shared with her first husband, Paolo.
It's a love that began when Giulia left the Italian village of her birth and came to New York, where Paolo Serafini captured her heart...and took her dancing on Sunday afternoons.
And as Cara discovers, it's a love that's never ended - and never will.
everlasting #1
June 1, 2016
A delightful novel about love between two Italians: Giulia and Paolo. Their story alone would recommend the book, but the background description of Giulia's large family in rural Italy and how many of the family members immigrated to the United States early in the twentieth century makes it wonderful social history. If I were still teaching college-level U.S. history courses, I would definitely consider adopting the book for a class on post-Civil War immigration history. A very enjoyable read.
October 12, 2013
My book club recently read this beautifully written love story. The author, Linda Cardillo, actually came to our book club and told us some "inside information" about the story. She was so fascinating to listen to! Linda read to us from her manuscript some passages from her upcoming book. I will definitely be on the lookout for that one.
February 14, 2010
I thought this was a really beautiful love story told by the grandmother. So few people ever have taken the opportunity to find out that much about an earlier generation's life. This was a very well written book and I would highly recommend it.
February 8, 2014
Not at all what I thought when this book was recommended. When I saw that it was published by Harlequin , I almost passed. Admittedly, I am not a fan of the typical romance. I like stories about people though, and relationships. This book delivers. And from a local author!
May 5, 2008
While I enjoyed the pace and writing of this story I didn't like the setting. This was my first time reading a bok by this author. I'll read more by her in the future.
October 9, 2009
Nothing I would recommend. Just a ho-hum read.
March 7, 2011
I love this story -- brought back warm memories of my Nonna Rosa!
May 9, 2011
Such a warm novel of true love and warm Italian family memories.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews