The Scent of Rosa's Oil
Lina Simoni, 2008
Kensington Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780758219244
Summary
Set in the beautiful port city of Genoa, Italy, at the turn-of-the-century, The Scent of Rosa's Oil is a magical story that attests to the strength of longing, the consequences of betrayal, and the nostalgic memories only a one-of-a-kind fragrance can evoke .
The only home Rosa has ever known is the Luna brothel, where she's lovingly cared for by Madam C and all the women who work there. Madam C shelters Rosa from what really goes on at the Luna by telling her they play a game with the men who visit. Naturally, Rosa is curious and can't wait until she grows up so she can also play the game.
But when a twist-of-fate forces Rosa to leave the Luna after her sixteenth birthday, she goes to stay with her new friend Isabel, an old woman who distills oils. The strange smells and smoke that emanate from Isabel's shack have deemed her a witch to the locals, but only Rosa sees a lonely, tender woman with a passion for making beautifully-scented oils. Enchanted by the intoxicating fragrances around her, Rosa becomes Isabel's apprentice, learning the art of extracting a flower's essence and selling the oils in the town square.
Soon everyone in Genoa is talking about the pretty, young girl with the lush locks of red hair who sells aromatic oils in the piazza. Some say she has the oil to cure whatever ailment one has, while others say her oils will capture the heart of a special person. Indeed, Rosa has learned Isabel's secret for creating her own "perfect oil"—a unique fragrance that holds a mysterious power.
Now Rosa needs a miracle to make Renato, the man she has fallen in love with, see past the ugly rumors he's heard about her and the Luna brothel. Disguising herselfwith a black wig and dabbing her special fragrance on her wrists, Rosa sets out to win Renato. But how long can Rosa keep her true identity hidden? And when destiny intervenes, challenging their love in unforeseeable ways, they'll need a magic even greater than the scent of Rosa's oil. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Genoa, Italy
• Education—B.S., engineering; Ph.D., computer science;
training in neuroscience—all US schools
• Currently—lives in Palm Spring, California USA
Lina Simoni was born in Genoa, Italy and moved to the US in 1988 to pursue an academic career. With a B.S. in Engineering, a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and training in Neuroscience, she did research and taught for 12 years at major American institutions (MIT, Northwestern University, McGill University) in the field of Computational Neuroscience, studying and modeling the functions of the human brain. She abandoned her scientific endeavors in 2000, when she decided to turn her lifelong hobbies (literature and art) into full-time professional activities. Trained at the Art Insitute of Chicago and the Evanston Art Center, she showed her paintings and photographs in galleries in the Midwest, Northeast, Florida, and the South of France.
On the literary front, she is a graduate of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Santa Fe Writers' Conference, and other literary/screenwriting events. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women. Simoni authored two novels, award-winning The Scent of Rosa's Oil and Villa Serenata, published in the US and Europe; one children's book, Sofia's Rainbow; and numerous short stories and screenplays. Her son, Tommaso, is a talented actor/musician as well as a scholar of the cultures (languages, history, philosophy) of the Mediterranean basin. Simoni lives in Palm Springs, CA. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The Scent of Rosa's Oil has an atmosphere as unusual as its title. It reads almost like an allegory where one accepts less than reality for a higher cause, though I'm not positive I've plumbed its lesson. The obvious one, of course, is that one shouldn't judge the worth of a person without walking in his or her shoes. But is there also the lesson that perfectly good people may live happy and comfortable lives outside the normal ethos of one's society? The Luna is a world of its own where its inhabitants are loving towards a child and kindly to each other. It's only with the unknowing hurt Rosa causes at her party that ill will explodes at Luna. All that aside, The Scent of Rosa's Oil is a captivating reading experience with an original plot and an unusual setting. —Jane Bowers
Romance Review Today.com
Simoni's juicy debut is the story of Rosa, a young Genoan woman born to a prostitute and orphaned at birth in the late 19th century. Her guardian is Madam C, the proprietor of a much-loved brothel called the Luna, who shields Rosa from "the game" played on the second floor of her house. But for Rosa's 16th birthday party, she wears a special perfume distilled by her peculiar friend Isabel, and before the evening's over, the mayor, enchanted by the scent, ends up playing "the game" with Rosa. (Rosa, unbelievably, doesn't realize what's going on nor has she ever seen a naked man before.) When their tryst is discovered, Madame C, who has pined for the mayor for years, hurls Rosa onto the street. The orphan seeks refuge with Isabel and hides her born-in-a-brothel past from her new beau, longshoreman Renato (who is also susceptible to Isabel's perfume), but when Renato's life and their love are threatened, Rosa must decide what truths are worth the risk of losing him. Though parts of the story feel pat and the dialogue is often stiff, most of this light, whimsical romance's flaws are forgivable.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Scent of Rosa's Oil:
1. In what way does Simoni turn the conventional assumption about prostitues and "witches" on its head?
2. Should Madam C have kep Rosa from understanding the real "game" / business of Luna? Is there a difference between naivete and innocence? Can you have one without the other? Today, we try to protect our children from adult "knowledge" of the world. Is it possible to over protect them?
3. Was it smart or right of Rosa to deceive Renato by with-holding her upbringing from him and disguising herself? Or did she do it out of necessity? Are we less judgmental today, or do we continue to judge others according to their back-grounds. In other words, do we still believe that that the sins of the parent are visited upon the child? (Be honest, now.)
4. How is this book similar to those that center on food and its magical properties? Have you read, or know of, other works comparable to The Scent of Rosa's Oil? What might all these works be saying about the power of the senses as opposed to the intellect? Think of it this way: historically, Western culture has considered reason superior to passion—the intellect must control pleasure, i.e., the desire to indulge the senses. How does Simoni's work (and others) challenge that way of thinking?
5. This novel is partly a coming-of-age story, in which the heroine attains maturity and finds her way into the adult world. What does Rosa come to learn by the end of the story? What about Renato?
6. Can you discern the ways in which Simoni portrays the winds of change in this work—a more modern way of viewing the world?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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