The Madness of Julia Bloom — Jan Jones

Julia Bloom takes early retirement from academia and leaves a comfortable and secure life in Sydney for an indefinite sojourn and study time, with no return date, in the Italian city of Florence in the early nineteen nineties. She meets up again with an old acquaintance aptly named Virgil and while love is in the air she also comes to understand that this city does not live up to her expectations in ways she had not contemplated previously. Fate intervenes and takes her to assist an old friend in Palermo and her time there proves both terrorising and life threatening as she finds herself embroiled with the local Mafiosi. The novel takes a serious look at women over twenty years ago who by circumstance, chose or not, to live alone turning their back on ideas of marriage and family. But Julia's story continues to be even more pertinent today as more and more women find they are not going to encounter that long term partner once they have reached a certain age. Society and the roles of men and women have irreversibly changed even though ideals of love and marriage remain embedded and the wedding day itself an extravaganza. Through the adventures of Julia Bloom the reader will note her oddities and strange determination, her weaknesses and her great strength of character. Now in the twenty first century she signifies a modern Venus, she has the strength of Diana the Huntress, she is a self healer, a witch perhaps who would have once been burnt at the stake. She is all thinking, given to anxiety and she is just a little mad as most of the best women will admit to. Without mobile phone, email, internet, lap top, television and most modern conveniences that have become common place today, Julia strides forth into the city of Florence enjoying a new found solitude and peace perforated by the promise of unexpected romantic dalliance. This is not a travel romance. It is an awakening of spirit and self in a strange land.