There wasn't anything I disliked about this book. the writing style and format was good and engaged me the whole way along, the storyline was absolutely riveting and thought provoking.

I am a sucker for a multiple point of view story. I did enjoy this book but it wasn't one of my favourites. I found the different family relations and dynamics interesting and engaging. I have read another book by this author and really appreciate her writing style. I must say I enjoyed her previous novel more.

Very unusual, I loved this!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

I loved this book it was much better than I expected to be. It was absolutely fantastic. I would highly recommend it

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UKfor giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am sad to say I never really got into this book. For me, it felt like the author was really trying to make it funny and entertaining, but I just found it really dull and not at all captivating. This may be because the characters are over-50, so I may have not been the target audience. The characters all had interesting backstories, but I just never understood what was going on. Reasons for this could include the fact that it was slow-paced, which is something I always struggle with particular books, as I like a plot that moves medium-fast.

I’ve only read a couple of Amanda Craig’s books and really need to crack on with the rest, ‘cause I always have a lovely time. This one was no exception. The modern world was spliced in with the old and elderly using a beautiful Italian backdrop which made me very hungry for a holiday. I loved Tania and Raff’s stories and the Blessing storyline gave a sympathetic nod to the plight many millions of migrants are facing.

I unfortunately could not get into this book, but this might be a better book for another reader. I hope the author the best success for their future.

My thanks to Little, Brown Group U.K. Abacus for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘The Three Graces’ by Amanda Craig.

I have enjoyed a number of Craig’s previous novels and would describe them as ‘comedies of manners’. She expertly blends comedy, drama, and social observation. The Graces of the title are three elderly women, who have retired to Tuscany.

Ruth is hosting the wedding of her favourite grandson, Olly, from her idyllic hillside farmhouse. Yet the bride, Tania, seems curiously unengaged by anything apart from posting to various social media platforms as part of her role as an influencer. Marta is preparing to give her annual music recital sponsored by a Russian oligarch currently in hiding from Putin. She is increasingly unwell and her visiting grandson, Xan, is concerned about her though is full of resentment at the inequalities that he encounters. Finally, Diana is nursing her husband, Lord Evenlode, who is living with dementia. She finds herself looking back over their long and troubled marriage.

Over two weeks in May 2022, these characters and others will find themselves facing various challenges. While the Tuscan spring looks as ravishing as a Renaissance painting, the realities of modern life impinge on its perfection.

In her Afterword Craig writes about the influences that caused her to write the novel and includes mentions of her other novels where various characters made appearances.

Overall, I found ‘The Three Graces’ an outstanding novel that brought together excellent writing, multiple interwoven storylines, strong characterisations across generations, a magnificent setting, and insightful commentary on contemporary social issues.

With its mistaken identities and romantic misunderstandings, there is something of a Shakespearean feel to it. The influence of Botticelli is also evident including Tania’s appearance being compared to his ‘Birth of Venus’ and, of course, the ‘Primavera’, which is referenced in the text, title and witty cover art.

Another triumph for Amanda Craig.

This is the story of three elderly ex-pats, Ruth, DIana and Marta, living in Tuscany while Ruth is preparing to host her grandson Olly's wedding to Tania, an influencer, while there is lots going on with village life.
There's a whole host of characters, and relationships between families, friends, neighbours, and strangers, so I did forget some people until the popped up again later. I really liked Juicy.
Some of the issues raised are very current, and it seems to try and cover everything that is going on. It felt like there was a lot of talk about money and wealth, which, for me, detracted from the story.
An enjoyable read.

The Three Graces are three expatriate ladies in their 80s who have retired to a quiet town in Tuscany. Here they are coming to terms with their lives while refusing to be dismissed due to their advanced age. The novel is an enjoyable read on the surface, in a beautiful and tranquil setting that belies some of the darker, complex sides of life. Ms Craig's strength is her portrayal of generations of families, their strengths and weaknesses. Her fans will not be disappointed. Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group/Abacus for the opportunity to read and review The Three Graces.

Having recently become acquainted with the gifted author Amanda Craig, I was greatly looking forward to reading her latest, where she atmospherically evokes Tuscany and the Italian town of Santorno. Where Craig excels is in her astute creation and development of distinct, diverse and complicated collection of flawed characters, displaying an uncommon balance, depth, sensitivity, non-judgementalism and humanity in her portrayals. The eponymous three graces are ageing expatriate women in their eighties, Diana who cares for her obnoxious and abusive dementia suffering husband, divorced American Ruth Viner who is feeling the pressure and stresses of organising her grandson's wedding to a well known social media influencer, Tania, and concert pianist and widow Marta Konnig.

These are women, who whilst dealing with the inevitable decline that getting older brings, the pain, the losses, the body breaking down, still have plenty of verve, development and living to do in a world that would have them be invisible. This is a beautifully written, gripping and drama filled read, which slowly penetrates beneath the surface appearances of the characters, including giving voice to different realities, a fast changing world with its growing contemporary dilemmas, including the cost of living crisis, family, trauma, wars, fears, conflicts, class divisions, racism, migrants, and human trafficking. The story opens with a shocking act, with local Enzo Rossi ending up shooting someone, there is a Russian oligarch living in fear of being killed, African and Albanian migrant lives that differ significantly to the arriving wedding guests, and the deepening cultural and financial gap between the generations.

Craig provides a insightful social and political commentary on a world which seems to become increasingly fragmentary and polarised, where many have nothing to lose, where privilege may not always confer the expected advantages, where ageing may be no barrier to continued personal development and redemption is possible. Craig is a writer to be treasured, she manages to pull off and incorporate important global and national issues and themes into the lives and dramas of characters that radiate authenticity. This is a fun and entertaining read that probes and shines a light on the darkest of places, but does it with wit, light, and humour. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

The inspiration for this story was the Primavera painting by Botticelli but I was often reminded of Shakespeare’s Mediterranean-set plays such as Much Ado About Nothing. There are mistaken identities, revealed family and mismatched lovers, all set in the Tuscan scenery.
I enjoyed the narrative and the variety of characters amongst the pages. They were all individual and nuanced with positive and negative character traits and opinions.
With English politics and the media obsessed by the number of immigrants crossing to this country, it was interesting to get a new perspective in a country closer to Africa where numbers would be much higher.
The story also challenged preconceptions of who a refugee might be, with Blessing being able to blend in easily with the wedding attendees.
An enjoyable summer literary read.

This was a bit of a slow burner, set in Santorno, Tuscany, it starts with a prologue in which local man Enzo shoots what he believes to be someone trying to break into his property. Then we meet the Three Graces of the title, expat women in their 80’s who, for various reasons have retired to this quiet town. Diana Evenlode is caring for her rather vile, abusive, aristocratic husband who is living with dementia; Ruth Viner is a wealthy American who is preparing for her grandsons wedding and Marta Konnig a former concert pianist. This is a well written, very descriptive book with a gentle plot that has some very dark corners in it.

Briefly, as the guests for the wedding of the year start to arrive Ruth is worried that encouraging the wedding was a mistake. The bride Tania, a vlogger, seems completely uninterested in all the preparations other than how they will look on her social media and Ruth’s grandson Ollie still hasn’t arrived at the villa.

This all sounds rather idyllic but everything definitely isn’t a bed of roses. There are references to many of todays social and economic problems. The migrant crisis is an important part of the storyline, alongside the Russian war against Ukraine and Putins private ‘war’ against Russian oligarch’s who left the country and there are references to Covid pandemic and the issues around an increasingly aging population. An enjoyable and satisfying read with some important messages amongst the beautiful Tuscan countryside and the entertaining story.

4.5⭐️

Three elderly women, wise, foolish and alive, refusing to be pigeon-holed or dismissed 4.5 rating

I am never NOT going to appreciate, a lot, any book written by this author, even if this one did not quite match the dizzying heights of almost all her other novels.

Craig, very much a state of the nation author, writes always with a rich delight in language itself, and with a fine sense of both the humour and the tragedy of the human condition. She is, in many ways, a kind of modern Dickens, exposing, incisively, our preenings and posturings and the unpleasant underbelly of society, with wicked humour, but also with an appreciation for the complexities of almost all of her characters. Unlike Dickens, we don’t often get out-and-out hiss the villains, but will have to grapple with the flaws – sometimes quite severe – of characters we might have some warmth towards, whilst finding that characters we might automatically find reprehensible (generally the privileged) have aspects or actions to them which might, partially at least, offer some redemption.

A continuing delight in Craig’s writing is characters to appear across more than one of her books, sometimes central, sometimes peripheral. And so it is here, where the central characters, 3 women now in their eighties – the Graces of the title, have retired to Tuscany (the setting for a couple of her earlier books)

All three have had – or have, somewhat complicated relationships. Ruth Viner’s marriage ended in divorce and betrayal. Diana Evenlode (various branches of the wealthy and not so wealthy Evenlodes appear in many of her novels) is dealing with her philandering and cruel husband’s slide into demential. Marta Evenlode, who was a concert pianist, refugee from Germany, and a great friend of Ruth’s, is the only one of the three whose marriage was truly happy, though she has been a widow for many years, as her husband died unexpectedly.

The focus is wonderfully on these three, and Craig gives us three very old women, each, in their different ways still changing, still spirited, still very much alive, though of course decrepitude, loss, death, stalk the pages.

Drama and a large cast of younger characters, going through different kinds of conflicts and desires, is provided by the fact that a large wedding party, which includes several massed friends and relatives of Diana’s, Ruth’s and Marta’s, are about to descend.

Where this novel slightly fell off absolute adoration for me, was the somewhat complicated slight harkback to an earlier novel’s Midsummer Night’s Dream tangle of swapping lovers – Craig’s Love In Idleness. So there’s quite a bit of backstory exposition which has to happen, with ends which had been left dangling in some earlier books needing to be finally completed.

Amanda Craig's latest novel is a joy to read. Set in Tuscany in Spring 2022, it offers a memorable and diverse cast of characters, an intriguing plot full of unexpected but satisfying twists, a beautifully evoked Tuscan setting, and highly topical and incisive social commentary on many of the issues facing us in today's society, including the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the migrant crisis, an ageing population and 'Generation Rent'.

At the heart of the novel are the eponymous 'three graces', three expat octogenarians living in the Tuscan hill town of Santorno: aristocratic Diana Evenlode, a former debutante living in reduced circumstances as she cares for her husband who is suffering from dementia; widowed Marta Konnig, a renowned concert pianist; and divorced American-Jewish psychotherapist Ruth Viner, who is now playing reluctant host to her hedge-fund manager grandson's wedding to a social media influencer. Like all characters in the novel. these three women are flawed but lovable and retain plenty of strength and spirit even as their bodies start to fail them. As well as these three ladies and the various wedding guests, the plot incorporates a local Russian oligarch in exile and migrants from Africa and Albania, one of whom is shot by Italian local Enzo in the novel's prologue.

There are a lot of balls to keep in the air, and Craig manages this with great skill. I was completely absorbed by the novel which moves deftly between different perspectives and features lots of cliffhanger endings to chapters. More than this, however, I was impressed by the generosity of Craig's writing. The novel allows us to consider complex issues from different points of view without judgement: we hear Ruth's resentment at her freeloading grandson and fiancée when she feels that she has worked hard all her life, but we also hear Marta's mixed-race grandson Xan's anger at generational inequality and the racial prejudice he has faced. The hardships faced by migrants are compassionately explored but Craig also gives voice to Enzo and his fellow Italians' frustrations at the impact of mass migration on their communities. The novel doesn't seek to legitimise Enzo's thoughts or actions but nor does it offer easy answers. Instead, there is an expansiveness to Craig's moral vision as characters and readers both develop empathy - there is even hope for the seemingly vapid vlogger and hedge-fund manager. The result is a profoundly moving, entertaining and timely read, reminiscent of Anthony Trollope's novels which are so beloved by Ruth and Diana.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC of this superb novel to review!

Another excellent novel from Amanda Craig. I like the way she moves her characters forward: each book includes people who have featured in earlier books, develops their stories and grows them older appropriately. She is very good at portraying family relationships - tensions arising from family histories and resolutions as characters see new sides of each other.
This story centres on three elderly women, each battling in her own way the increasing privations of old age. I am only slightly younger then they are so it resonated with me in many ways and I appreciated the author's sensitivity and very credible depiction of their situations. These contrasted neatly with the concerns of their grandchildren whose way of life was something of a mystery to the older generation.
Set in a beautifully evoked rural Tuscany, the main focus of the plot is preparations for a wedding. But I found the plot to be somewhat clunky: it felt as if it had to be stretched to encompass issues about refugees and racism, which, while relevant, seemed over-emphasised in places. Similarly, we were constantly reminded of the overwhelming beauty of Tania, the bride-to-be. - again, very relevant to her character and behaviour but over-emphasised. And I did wonder about the apparently straightforward recovery from gunshot wounds, important to the plot but perhaps unconvincing in real life. But nevertheless, a very enjoyable read.

Amanda Craig is a standout talent. Her writing is bold, smart and gripping. The Three Graces is as thrilling and fascinating as The Golden Rule.

I’ve read two of the previous novels that include some of the characters within Thai new novel so it was good to catch up with them and hear some about the minor characters. However what this highlighted was that I really never fully engaged with the previous books as I found it hard to place some the backstories and connections. I was this same with this novel while it was good and made some truly insightful points about society today I found it hard to fully get into it. It dragged on a bit in places, lacked humour and the story itself got lost. I did enjoy it and found a lot of the points Craig makes relevant and intelligent it wasn’t for me I skipped though places to get to the end. Thanks for the ARC but this will be last of Craig’s book I read.

Amanda Craig’s novels are eminently readable; witty and plot driven, they also allow us to appreciate her skills in characterisation as, over the course of her narratives we learn about what makes her people who they are. ‘The Three Graces’ is no exception. This comedy of manners explores the aging process through the lives of three octogenarian ex-pat female friends residing in beautiful Tuscany.
However gorgeous the countryside, though, these women recognise that life in Italy is no more idyllic than anywhere else. Racism is rife; the winters are cold and the summers too hot; tourists ae thoughtless and people can be lonely anywhere.
Ruth has reluctantly agreed to host her grandson Olly’s wedding and the narrative builds up to this event. However, having encouraged him to propose, she now doubts whether his influencer fiancée, Tania, is right for him. Her ‘Maestra’ friend, Marta, is becoming increasingly frail and suffering from almost unbearable pain. What to do when she is so far from home? And Diana, who is caring for her insufferable husband, who is in the last stages of Alzheimer’s, is sleep deprived, full of regrets and persecuted, even now, by a man who tells her he never loved her.
Within this story of old people ‘buggering on’, Craig also asks us to consider millennials’ concerns, why the appearance of refugees can cause fear, alongside aspects of Brexit and the war in Ukraine. It is credit to her writing skills that these topical subjects are part of her characters’ lives rather than a bolt-on, just as they are her readers’.
If you have read her previous novels, you are likely to enjoy the reintroduction of familiar characters and will look forward to further appearances in the future. Diana, usually the most pragmatic of the ‘Three Graces’ says: ‘‘Life must be lived in prose…just not without a sense of wonder.’’ Whilst one could criticise Craig for sticking with a mostly privileged cast who enjoy more than one or two fairy tale moments, she does ensure that her men and women have their share of moral tussles and difficult decisions as they face their particular truths.
My thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review

This book about three elderly expatriate women living in Tuscany is as enjoyable as Amanda Craig's other books. I haven't read all of them but this will be remedied soon.. Ruth, Marta and Diana (all of whom appear in earlier novels of Craig's) live in Tuscany. Ruth is hosting the wedding of her grandson Olly to influencer Tanya. We follow what happens over the course of the two weeks before the wedding.

Craig doesn't shy away from tackling contemporary issues such as refugees and racism and she deals with them delicately. I like the way the characters develop, especially Enzo who fears the unknown aspects of migration but is moved to eventually do the right thing. The characters that Craig shows us are living, complex human beings and all the better for that.

Above all, I enjoyed that this was at heart a book with old people at its heart. There are not enough of these around and I think of regret of how much my mother and mother in law, now dead, would have enjoyed reading it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.