Review: "Nymph" by Sofia Montrone

Nymph by Sofia Montrone
Published June 2026 via Avid Reader Press
★★★★

The hotel has been in the family for a century and, in one way or another, has always been a place for people to pass through. (loc. 58*)

At ten, Leo's world is secure—summers in Italy helping her grandmother at the family's agriturismo, a brother to share in her games, a father who has the answer to any question she might ask. If her mother struggles to get out of bed and her father's exuberance sometimes tips into something darker, she can write those off.

They share everything in the manner of siblings who have not yet distinguished themselves with time. (loc. 71)

As a teenager, poised to start university, Leo's world feels less certain. She's still scavenging forgotten items from hotel rooms, still swimming in the pool and still (or, well, now) playing cards with the town's contingent of old men. But things have changed, for better and for worse, and when an American drifts into town her perception of the world changes again.

The body is a long series of betrayals. (loc. 151)

I read this, I think, for the sensation of a slow, sticky Italian summer. It's a relatively quiet story: a climax in the middle, yes, and some big shifts in Leo's understanding of her Italian life (maybe less of her American life) and her family and her place in it all. But mostly it is two summers in a girl's life, summers that would unfold exactly as she expects were it not for the unpredictabilities of life. Think litfic with a high readability factor; think coming of age; think hot weather and dry seasons and complicated characters and bows left intentionally untied. Satisfying.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.