Kissing in Italian

Lauren Henderson follows up Kisses and Curses with Kissing in Italian, a YA novel that brings the same group of four girls back to the Italian countryside for another summer. The mystery from the first book has shifted but isn’t fully resolved, and the central character Violet is still trying to figure out where she comes from and why one of the people she’s met seems to know more than they’re saying.

Henderson writes strong friendships, and the four girls each have a clear voice rather than blending into one composite teen narrator. The romance and the mystery share roughly equal page time.

Readers new to the series will want to start with the first book to follow the family thread. Coming in here cold means missing some of the setup. As a continuation, it does what most middle books in a series try to do, which is keep the stakes moving without giving everything away.