"The Apartment in Rome" by Penny Feeny

An audio book.

July 2010. Rome. Gina Stanhope, an ex-model, has been in Italy 20 years. She's now a freelance photographer, just about making ends meet. Gina still misses Felix her husband of 5 years before. She's having an affair with Roberto (Berti) Boletti. He's rich - her landlord. He wants her to photograph his son, Antonio. When Gina visits, she meets freckled Sasha, a 15 y.o. language student who the Boletti family is hosting. She's feeling lonely. Gina invites her to call later.

Sasha has a chance meeting with Bruten (a ginger, Scottish/American boy) who's also at a language school. Then she goes to Gina's flat. She sees models leaving, one of them called Jo. Sasha and Gina talk. Gina's parents neglected her. Her mother still drinks. Sasha's mother is doing a Ph.D. Her father's a pilot.

Gina has an art project involving illegal immigrants. She goes to a gallery owner with a portfolio. He's only interested in the tasteful erotica. She visits her ex-flatmate Vicky, an estate agent. Vicky had organised Sasha's accommodation, knowing that she was the daughter of her ex, Mitch. She visits Leoni, a priest who runs a homeless shelter, walking past shanty towns.

Sasha talks to Jo, an 18 y.o. asylum seeker. She refers to him as "just a friend, a male model" to impress her classmates. Jo goes to the language school's goodbye party. A drunk American attacks him. Sasha protects him. Bruten helps them afterwards. She and Jo go to Gina's to recover. She and Jo have sex. Gina photographs them for artistic reasons while they're asleep, telling Sasha after.

Roberto thinks that Gina's a lonely widow. She thinks the sex is ok. He offers her a rent-free apartment, newly build, out of town. She's offended. They split up.

We switch to Mitch's 3rd person PoV. Sasha phones him. He works out who Sasha's with. He and Corinne aren't getting on that well. He thinks she has someone else. We learn about Mitch and Gina's relationship. When she was about to tell him she was pregnant, he told her he was leaving him because of her instability. We learn more about Felix. He was an art lecturer. When they married she knew it wouldn't last long. He was gay, she rented a room in his flat. They had fun together.

A year later, Sasha wants to return to Rome. Her mother, now a Dr., feels constricted by the marriage.

Berti tries to evict Gina. She has a chance to display her work. She's pressurised to remove photos of Berti's son. As a hurried replacement she puts up the photo of Sasha and Jo. Sasha, her father, and her friend Ruby visit Rome. Sasha and Ruby stumble upon the exhibition. They go to Gina's flat to complain but before they have a chance, Gina leaves them in the flat. Poking around, they find a birth certificate for Gina's son. Mitch sees the exhibition and wants to buy the photo. Later Gina and Mitch meet. Her keyhole is superglued. He offers to help. A valuable artwork given to her by Felix is missing. He finds the birth certificate and confronts her. She tells him their baby was born with heart complications and died young.

Sasha tries to find Jo. He's disappeared. She and Ruby had taken the valuable artwork thinking it was done by Gina's son. They took it as ransom for news of Jo's location.They return it to her. We learn that Leoni had killed someone due to careless driving. The tax collectors are catching up with Berti.

There are elements of an interesting story here. I don't think so many unlikely events needed to be added to the refugee tale. Mitch and the baby could go for a start. The Italian characters tend to fit standard caricatures, but not unrealistically so.