THE LAST PROMISE (2002)

It's understandable that a reader would wince at yet another novel inspired by an author's trip to Italy (we get it -- corsets come unlaced a little bit faster there). Best-selling Evans (The Christmas Box) is the latest to be enamored, and the product of his adventures is a whammo, presto, amore! novel. Order up one lost American soul fleeing to Tuscany and one American woman married to a caricatured Italian, and you've got The Last Promise, a kind of Ponte Over Tuscan County. Thankfully, Evans' writing is restrained, but ultimately, so is the story, leaving this reader wondering if the tale might play better after some Chianti.