“What are Adriana Trigiani’s Best Books?” We looked at all of Trigiani’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!

We took all of the books written by Adriana Trigiani and looked at their Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.

The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Top Book’s Of Adriana Trigiani

20 ) All the Stars in the Heavens

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 17
• Amazon: 19
• LibraryThing: 19

Born in the golden age of Hollywood, All the Stars in Heaven captures the luster, drama, power, and secrets that could only thrive in the studio system – viewed through the lives of an unforgettable cast of players creating magic on the screen and behind the scenes. In this spectacular saga as radiant, thrilling, and beguiling as Hollywood itself, Adriana Trigiani takes us back to Tinsel Town’s golden age – an era as brutal as it was resplendent – and into the complex and glamorous world of a young actress hungry for fame and success. With meticulous, beautiful detail, Trigiani paints a rich, historical landscape of 1930s Los Angeles, where European and American artisans flocked to pursue the ultimate dream: to tell stories on the silver screen. The movie business is booming in 1935 when 21-year-old Loretta Young meets 34-four-year-old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he’s already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress instantly. Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young’s secretary, the innocent and pious young Alda must navigate the wild terrain of Hollywood with fierce determination and a moral code that derives from her Italian roots.

18 ) Viola in Reel Life

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 19
• Amazon: 19
• LibraryThing: 13

I’m marooned. Abandoned. Left to rot in boarding school . . . Viola doesn’t want to go to boarding school, but somehow she ends up at an all-girls school in South Bend, Indiana, far, far away from her home in Brooklyn, New York. Now Viola is stuck for a whole year in the sherbet-colored sweater capital of the world. Ick. There’s no way Viola’s going to survive the year – especially since she has to replace her best friend Andrew with three new roommates who, disturbingly, actually seem to like it there. She resorts to viewing the world (and hiding) behind the lens of her video camera. Boarding school, though, and her roommates and even the Midwest are nothing like she thought they would be, and soon Viola realizes she may be in for the most incredible year of her life. But first she has to put the camera down and let the world in.

18 ) The Supreme Macaroni Company

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 20
• Amazon: 17
• LibraryThing: 14

For over a hundred years, the Angelini Shoe Company in Greenwich Village has relied on the leather produced by Vechiarelli & Son in Tuscany. This ancient business partnership provides the twist of fate for Valentine Roncalli to fall in love with Gianluca Vechiarelli, a tanner with a complex past…and a secret. But after the wedding celebrations are over, Valentine wakes up to the hard reality of juggling the demands of a new business and the needs of her new family. Confronted with painful choices, Valentine remembers the wise words that inspired her in the early days of her beloved Angelini Shoe Company: “A person who can build a pair of shoes can do just about anything.” Now, the proud, passionate Valentine is going to fight for everything she wants and savor all she deserves – the bitter and the sweet of life itself. Romantic and poignant, told with humor and warmth, and bursting with a cast of endearing characters, The Supreme Macaroni Company is an unforgettable narrative about family, work, romance, and the unexpected turns of life and fate.

17 ) American Girls About Town

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 17
• Amazon: 15
• LibraryThing: 18

16 ) Rococo

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 16
• Amazon: 15
• LibraryThing: 16

From the dazzling shores of New Jersey to the legendary fabric houses of New York City, from the prickly purveyors of fine art in London to luscious Santa Margherita on the Mediterranean coast of Italy, Bartolomeo is on a mission to bring talent, sophistication, and his aesthetic vision to his hometown. Trigiani’s glittering mosaic of small-town characters sparkles: Bartolomeo’s hilarious sister, Toot, is in desperate need of a postdivorce transformation-thirteen years after the fact; “The Benefactor,” Aurelia Mandelbaum, the richest woman in New Jersey, has a lust for French interiors and a long-held hope that Bartolomeo will marry her myopic daughter, Capri; Father Porporino, the pastor with a secret, does his best to keep a lid on a simmering scandal; and Eydie Von Gunne, the chic international designer, steps in and changes the course of Bartolomeo’s creative life, while his confidante, cousin Christina Menecola, awaits rescue from an inconsolable grief. Plaster of Paris, polished marble, and unbridled testosterone arrive in buckets when Bartolomeo recruits Rufus McSherry, a strapping, handsome artist, and Pedro Allercon, a stained-glass artisan, to work with him on the church’s interior. Together, the three of them will do more than blow the dust off the old Fatima frescoes-they will turn the town upside down, challenge the faithful, and restore hope where there once was none.

15 ) Viola in the Spotlight

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 13
• Amazon: 12
• LibraryThing: 17

I am in the midst of a conundrum. Viola is finally where she belongs – back home in Brooklyn, where there are no khakis or sherbet-colored sweaters and people actually think her yellow flats are cool. With two whole months of nothing to do but hang with her two best friends, Andrew and Caitlin, this is going to be the best break ever! But her BFFAA, Andrew, has started acting weird around her, and a new boyfriend has her friend Caitlin ditching her every chance she gets. When Viola’s roommates from Prefect Academy show up for a visit, she starts to wonder – is Brooklyn where she wants to stay? When a tragic event shakes everyone’s world, Viola realizes it’s not where she belongs that matters – it’s who she’s with that really counts. In this heartwarming follow-up to bestselling author Adriana Trigiani’s teen debut, Viola in Reel Life, Viola just may be ready to get out from behind her trusty video camera and take the starring role in her own life.

14 ) Tony’s Wife

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 14
• Amazon: 12
• LibraryThing: 9

Together they navigate the glamorous world of show business, from Hollywood and Las Vegas to New York City and beyond, but after a dream wedding they quickly realise that one of them will soon have to make a choice: who will put their professional ambition aside to build a family, and who will remain in the spotlight? As they juggle the demands of their public lives, secrets will be revealed, promises will be broken and loyalty will be tested . .

13 ) Kiss Carlo

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 15
• Amazon: 17
• LibraryThing: 1

The arrival of an urgent telegram from Italy upends the life of Nicky Castone, a young man who, orphaned as a child, now lives with his Uncle Dom and his large and boisterous family in the city., Surely there is more to life than this, despite a steady job in the family business and a sweet-natured fiancee? In secret, Nicky begins moonlighting at the local Shakespeare theatre company and is quickly drawn to the stage, its colourful players… and to feisty Calla Borelli, who runs the show. Before long he finds himself on the horns of a dilemma: can he return to the conventional life his family expects of him? Or does he have what it takes to chart a new course and risk losing everything he cherishes? Told against the backdrop of some of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, this epic novel brims with romance as long-buried secrets are revealed, mistaken identities are unmasked, scores are settled, broken hearts are mended and true love reigns., Kiss Carlo is a jubilee, resplendent with hope, love and the abiding power of la famiglia.*~*~*Readers love Adriana Trigiani!*~*~* ‘[Adriana Trigiani] has crafted a world of warm, lively characters whose charming idiosyncrasies lead them to collide and ricochet along the way to love.

12 ) Big Stone Gap

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 11
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 12

Ave Maria Mulligan is the thirty-five-year-old self-proclaimed spinster of Big Stone Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Ave Maria is content with her life of doing errands and negotiating small details – until she discovers a skeleton in her family’s formerly tidy closet that completely unravels her quiet, conventional life…

11 ) Very Valentine

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 12
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 10

In this contemporary family saga, the Angelini Shoe Company, makers of custom wedding shoes since 1903, is one of the last family businesses in Greenwich Village. On the brink of financial ruin, it falls to thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli, the talented but unsuspecting apprentice, to bring her family’s old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century. Juggling a romantic relationship with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design competition for a prestigious department store, Valentine accompanies her grandmother and master artisan Teodora to Italy in the hope of finding inspiration. There, in Tuscany and on the Isle of Capri, she discovers her artistic voice and much more, turning her life around in ways she never expected.

10 ) The Wisdom of My Grandmothers

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 2
• Amazon: 12
• LibraryThing: 14

Adriana Trigiani’s two remarkable grandmothers, Lucia and Viola, lived through the 20th century from beginning to end as working women who juggled careers and motherhood. From the factory line to the family table, the two of them – the very definition of modern women – cut a path for their granddaughter by demonstrating courage and skill in their fearless approach to life, love and overcoming obstacles. Trigiani visits the past to seek answers to the essential questions that define the challenges women face today: how we hold on to the values that make life rich and beautiful, how we can take risks and reap the rewards, how to stand resilient in the face of tragedy. ‘Be bold; ‘be direct’; ‘be different’!

9 ) Don’t Sing at the Table

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 2
• Amazon: 1
• LibraryThing: 20

illuminating the profound challenges and issues defining women’s lives has propelled her novels to the top of bestseller lists and earned her a wide, devoted readership. Now, she shares the roots of those insights – the wisdom handed down to her from her unforgettable grandmothers, Lucia and Viola, which she began collecting for her own daughter – with readers everywhere. Filled with practical, sage advice, and infused with Trigiani’s trademark warmth, love, and humor, Don’t Sing at the Table introduces a pair of feisty, intelligent, and strong forces of nature whose lives embody the story of 20th-century America itself. Between them, the extraordinary Lucia and Viola lived through the century from beginning to end, surviving immigration, young widowhood, single motherhood, four wars, and the Great Depression.

8 ) Home to Big Stone Gap

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 10
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 4

The changes in Ave Maria’s life are seismic as Etta begins her new life in Italy, Jack Mac is stunned by unexpected news and the appearance of a mysterious stranger who comes to town to reveal a secret buried long ago. Ave Maria’s world is rocked to its core, forcing her to face the past in order to build a new life. This is Trigiani at her best, a page turning story full of revelations, plot twists and characters we have come to embrace as family. Theodore Tipton, Iva Lou Makin, Fleeta Mullins, and Pearl Grimes are back, and so is Pete Rutledge, Jack Mac’s unspoken rival for the heart of Ave Maria. Millions of readers around the world have followed Trigiani from the streets of Greenwich Village, to the farmland of Pennsylvania, and to the Jersey shore, and now, will take you home again, where it all began, in the mountains of southwest Virginia. Written with humor, emotion and power in Trigiani’s trademark style, “Return to Big Stone Gap” is a true homecoming event.

6 ) Big Cherry Holler

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 6
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 10

Fans of Adriana Trigiani’s charmingly quirky novel Big Stone Gap should be delighted with the sequel, Big Cherry Holler, where readers once again hook up with Ave Maria, now entering her eighth year of marriage to Jack. Ave and Jack have weathered some rough times together, including the death of their three-year-old son, Joe. But tougher times are ahead, beginning with the loss of Jack’s job and his launching of a new business in which an attractive woman ends up as his adviser and supplier. Ave fears the woman is after far more, and given the strain she’s felt in her marriage lately, she fears Jack might be willing to provide it. Her fears increase when Jack backs out of their planned vacation to Italy and asks for a trial separation. Ave makes the trip without him and, after some serious soul searching, devises a plan to save her floundering marriage — if only it’s not too late.

6 ) Cooking with My Sisters

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 7
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 5

For the Trigianis, cooking has always been a family affair-and the kitchen was the bustling center of their home, where folks gathered around the table for good food, good conversation, and the occasional eruption. Example: Being thrown out of the kitchen because one’s Easter bread kneading technique isn’t up to par. As Adriana says: “When the Trigianis reach out and touch someone, we do it with food.” Like the recipes that have been handed down for generations from mother to daughter and grandmother to granddaughter, the family’s celebrations are also anchored to the life and laughter around the table. We learn how Grandmom Yolanda Trigiani sometimes wrote her recipes in code, or worked from memory, guarding her recipes carefully. And we meet Grandma Lucia Bonicelli, who never raised her voice and believed that when people fight at the dinner table, the food turns to poison in the body.Adriana Trigiani’s voice springs to life from the first page of Cooking with My Sisters, a collection of beloved family recipes that the Trigianis have been enjoying for generations.

5 ) Lucia, Lucia

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 5
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 8

Fuelled by the post-war boom, in which talented girls with ambition are encouraged to follow their dreams, Lucia becomes an apprentice for a made-to-wear clothing designer at a chic department store on Fifth Avenue. Though she is sought after as a potential wife by the best Italian families, Lucia stays her course and works hard, determined to have a career. She juggles the roles of dutiful daughter and ambitious working girl perfectly. When a handsome stranger comes to the story and catches her eye, it is love at first sight for both of them. In order to win Lucia’s hand, he must first win over her traditional family and make the proper offer of marriage. Their love affair takes an unexpected turn as secrets are revealed, Lucia’s family honour is tested, and her own reputation becomes the centre of a sizzling scandal. Set in a time of possibility and change for women in America, in a city that celebrates its energy with style and elegance, LUCIA, LUCIA is the story of a girl who risks everything for the belief that a woman could – and should – be able to have it all.

4 ) Brava, Valentine

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 9
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 3

As Brava, Valentine begins, snow falls like glitter over Tuscany at the wedding of her grandmother, Teodora, and longtime love, Dominic. Valentine’s dreams are dashed when Gram announces that Alfred, “the prince,” Valentine’s only brother and nemesis, has been named her partner at Angelini Shoes. Devastated, Valentine falls into the arms of Gianluca, a sexy Tuscan tanner who made his romantic intentions known on the Isle of Capri. Despite their passion for one another and Gianluca’s heartfelt letters, a long-distance relationship seems impossible. As Valentine turns away from romance and devotes herself to her work, mentor and pattern cutter June Lawton guides her through her power struggle with Alfred, while best friend and confidante Gabriel Biondi moves into 166 Perry Street, transforming her home and point of view. Savvy financier Bret Fitzpatrick, Valentine’s first love and former fiancÉe who still carries a torch for her, encourages Valentine to exploit her full potential as a designer and a business woman with a plan that will bring her singular creations to the world.

3 ) The Queen of the Big Time

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 7
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 6

In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in the Bari region of Italy, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, made a mass migration to the promised land: America. They settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, and re-created their former lives in their new home-town to the very last detail of who lived next door to whom. The hardworking Castellucas work the land outside Roseto. Nella, eighteen, aspires to a genteel life “in town,” far from the rigours of farm life. But Nella’s dreams of making her own fortune shift when she meets and falls in love with Renato Lanzara, a wordly, handsome, devil-may-care poet who has a way with words that makes him irresistible. Their friendship ignites into a passionate affair that Nella is certain will lead to marriage. When he disappears without explanation, Nella is left with a shattered heart. Five years later, Renato’s sudden return to Roseto, just one week before Nella’s wedding, leaves her and all the townsfolk shaken. For although Renato has chosen a path very different from Nella’s own, they are fated to live together, in the same town, for the rest of their lives.

2 ) Milk Glass Moon

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 4
• Amazon: 3
• LibraryThing: 6

A daughter’s first love, a mother’s heartbreak, an enduring marriage facing its own ongoing challenges, and a community faced with seismic changes, all are deep at the heart of Adriana Trigiani’s new novel. The third in her bestselling Big Stone Gap series, it continues the life story of Ave Maria as she faces the joys and demands of motherhood with her trademark humour and honesty. Reaching into the past to find answers to the present, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical, affectionate and heartfelt.

1 ) The Shoemaker’s Wife

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 1
• Amazon: 7
• LibraryThing: 1

Like threads of delicate gold, the lives of two young Italian lovers, Enza Ravanelli, a practical girl born into poverty, and Ciro Amadei, a dreamer raised in a convent orphanage, are woven together in this lush, epic novel set against the landscape of world events in the first half of the 20th century. The Shoemaker’s Wife spans two world wars, immigration, the birth of American manufacturing, the rigors of assimilation and the Great Depression. Like the times they were born into, Enza and Ciro’s story is filled with surprising twists and turns. Together, they embrace the promise of a new and better life as they attempt to survive by the labour of their own hands. But when Ciro is diagnosed with a deadly cancer from the bombs he endured in World War I, he returns home alone to Italy to say goodbye, and solve a final mystery about his family. When all seems lost, the new generation of the Amadei family rises, led by a feisty widow who loves her family and new country beyond all telling. A devoted and new patriot, Enza offers her only son to serve in World War II, and a surprising ending leads to a new era for the Amadei family.

Adriana Trigiani’s Best Books

Adriana Trigiani Review Website Bibliography Rankings