Assunta has given up on love. She might run her little trattoria in the most romantic mountain town in Italy, but love just seems to have passed her by. Sarah-Jane is finished with love. She's hiring an old convertible and driving around Italy this summer—it's the perfect way to forget all about her hot celebrity ex-boyfriend! But when Sarah-Jane's car breaks down in Montenello, she has to stay longer than she intended! And the trouble is, love is everywhere....

When Belle started writing to Enrico, she certainly wasn't looking to fall in love! Everything about his life in southern Italy is so different to hers - but somehow, across half the world, a magical friendship forms. And so, when Enrico signs off one of his messages, P.S. Come to Italy, Belle decides to follow her heart!

Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women - Julia, Camille, and Susan - all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany.

Stella has life under control - and that's the way she likes it. For 25 years, she's been the trusted assistant to a legendary fashion designer, but after her boss dies suddenly, she's left with nothing to do apart from clear the studio. It seems as though the life she wanted has vanished. She is lost - until one day she finds a house swap website and sees a beautiful old villa in a Southern Italian village. Could she really exchange her poky London flat for that?

Perfect for fans of warm contemporary women's fiction from Jo Thomas and Adriana Trigiani, Nicky Pellegrino returns with a perfect summer listen. Janetta has never wanted to live a small, everyday sort of life. She's an adventurer, a food writer who travels the world visiting far-flung places and eating unusual things. Now she is about to embark on her biggest adventure yet - a relationship. She has fallen in love with an Italian man and is moving to live with him in Venice, where she will help him run his small guesthouse.

Pieta Martinelli's sister is getting married. Since she is a bridal designer it falls to her to make the wedding gown. But Pieta is distracted by a series of unanswered questions. Why is her father feuding with another Italian in the neighbourhood? Why is her mother so faded and sad? And could the man she's always held a torch for really be getting married to someone else? As Pieta stitches and beads her sister's wedding gown she uncovers the secrets that have made her family what it is and that stand between her and happiness.

The Villa Girls is the story of four young women who decide that wherever they are in the world and whatever they're doing they'll meet every few years for a holiday together somewhere sunny. Despite life taking them in very different directions, their snatched days in the sun in little hidden villas are crucial to them all. Escape, celebration, recovery - over the years the holidays change their lives.

Escape to Italy with this sumptuous story of secrets and friendships under Mediterranean skies. A recipe for life should be a simple thing: love and happiness, family, friends and a little food. But life is rarely straightforward.... Alice wants to make the most of life - after all, she knows how fragile it can be - and knows she never feels more alive than when she's cooking. Babetta has spent a lifetime tending the garden of her tiny house on the Italian coast, supplying food to feed a family now grown and gone.

A trio of second-born daughters sets out on a whirlwind journey through the lush Italian countryside to break the family curse that says they’ll never find love, by New York Times best seller Lori Nelson Spielman, author of The Life List.

Workaholic, career-obsessed Francesca is fiercely independent and successful in all areas of life except one: family. She struggles to make time for her relationship with her teenage daughter, Allegra, and the two have become practically strangers to each other. When Allegra hangs out with a new crowd and is arrested for drug possession, Francesca gives in to her mother's wish that they take one epic summer vacation to trace their family roots in Italy. What she never expected was to be faced with the choice of a lifetime....

Ren Sawyer and Lizzy Harper live completely different lives. He's a rock star with a secret he can no longer live with. She's a regular person whose husband stood her up for a long-planned anniversary trip. On a flight across the Atlantic headed for Italy, a drunken pity party and untimely turbulence literally drop Lizzy into Ren's lap. It is the last thing she can imagine ever happening to someone like her. But despite their surface differences, they discover an undeniable pull between them. A pull that leads them both to remember who they had once been before letting themselves be changed.

This is the bella figura, the Italian concept of making every aspect of life as beautiful as it can be, that Kamin Mohammadi discovered when she escaped the London corporate media world for a year in Italy. Following the lead of her new neighbors, she soon found a happier, healthier, and more beautiful way of living.

Best-selling and beloved author Frances Mayes discovers the hidden pleasures of Italy in a sumptuous travel narrative that crisscrosses the country, with inventive new recipes celebrating Italian cuisine.

France, 1714: In a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever - and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Italy, 1945. "Where am I"? The young man wakes, bewildered. He sees olive trees against a bright blue sky. A soft voice soothes him. "We saw you fall from your plane. The parachute saved you". He remembers nothing of his life, or the war that has torn the world apart...but where does he belong? England, present day. Antique-shop-owner Susannah wipes away a tear as she tidies her grandmother’s belongings. Elsie’s memories are fading, and every day Susannah feels further away from her only remaining family.

In the beautiful village of Vernazza, the Mazzone family have transformed an old convent overlooking the glamorous Italian Riviera into the elegant Lemon Tree Hotel. For Chiara, her daughter, Elene, and her granddaughter, Isabella, the running of their hotel is the driving force in their lives. One day, two unexpected guests check in. The first, Dante, is a face from Chiara's past, but what exactly happened between them all those years ago, Elene wonders. Isabella is preoccupied with the second guest, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about the history of the old convent.

A heart-warming story about family secrets and one woman’s escape to dreamy Sandy Cove on the stunning west coast of Ireland. The picturesque beach of Wild Rose Bay is the last place Lydia Butler thought she’d be. But having just lost everything, the run-down cottage she inherited from her Great Aunt Nellie is the only place she can take her daughter, Sunny. Hidden away in a tiny Irish village, she can protect Sunny from the gossip in Dublin, and the real reason they have nowhere else to live....

When Catherine learns that she is dying, she remembers the words her husband once jokingly uttered and decides to leave him the ultimate posthumous gift: a time capsule containing photographs of their life together along with tape recordings in which she recounts every secret she ever kept, every unspoken thought whether loving or treacherous - the things they never said.

Take a trip to the Yorkshire village of Burley Bridge, where a very special little cookbook shop is about to open its doors.... In the beginning...Kitty Cartwright has always solved her problems in the kitchen. Her cookbooks are her life, and there isn't an issue that 'Cooking with Aspic' can't fix. Her only wish is that she had a book entitled Rustling Up Dinner When Your Husband Has Left You. Forty years later.... On Rosemary Lane, Della Cartwright plans to open a very special little bookshop.

It all began with a correspondence between two quite different women: 28-year-old Sara from Haninge, Sweden, and 65-year-old Amy from the small town of Broken Wheel, Iowa. After years of exchanging books, letters and thoughts on the meaning of literature and life, Sara, mousy, disheveled, who has never been anywhere in her life--has really lived only for her work in a beloved bookshop, which has just closed its doors for the last time--bravely decides to accept her unknown friend's invitation to visit. But when she arrives, she finds her house empty, the funeral guests just heading home. . .

Ever been tempted to pretend you were someone exotic, someone adventurous, someone different? Set in Ireland, England and Australia, this is the funny and heart-warming story of two people whose lives are about to turn upside down and inside out. Eva is off to Australia on a break from her job in a Dublin delicatessen, hoping to forget a fizzled romance and find inspiration for a new career. Joseph is taking a holiday from his stressful London job. Each is on a search for some answers about life.

All it takes is a cozy cottage, nostalgia for her family, and the unexpected presence of a tall, handsome man to make Belle realize the true meaning of Christmas.

The picture house by the sea is the Palace at Polwhipple - a lovely art deco cinema nestled in front of azure Cornish seas. But it is long past its heyday now, and its only saving grace is Ferrelli's, the family run ice-cream concession in the foyer, which is widely known as the best ice cream for miles. So when Ferdie, the owner of Ferelli's, breaks his leg, his granddaughter Gina drops everything to come and help out.

When Cleo and Dylan find each other at a Christmas party, will they be able to make the necessary choices in order to find happiness and love for themselves?

As a girl, Genevieve Martin spent the happiest summer of her life in Paris, learning the delicate art of locksmithing at her uncle's side. But since then, living back in the States, she has become more private, more subdued. She has been an observer of life rather than an active participant, holding herself back from those around her, including her soon-to-be ex-husband. Paris never really left Genevieve, and, as her marriage crumbles, she finds herself faced with an incredible opportunity.

Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten. But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins.

Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that seduces beautiful Connie into a second date...and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades later, they live more or less happily in the London suburbs with their moody seventeen year-old son, Albie. Then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead is for the best anyway? Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage, and might even help him to bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves, and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.

When 30-year-old Brooke Thompson unexpectedly runs into a man from her past, she's plunged headlong into memories she's long tried to forget about the year she spent in France following a disastrous affair with a professor.

For the past 33 years, Angela Gillespie has sent to friends and family around the world an end-of-the-year letter titled ‘Hello from the Gillespies’. It’s always been cheery and full of good news. This year, Angela surprises herself - she tells the truth....

The brilliant Alexander McCall Smith became an international sensation with his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels. His award-winning wit, made famous through that series, is fully on display in 44 Scotland Street.

Workaholic, career-obsessed Francesca is fiercely independent and successful in all areas of life except one: family. She struggles to make time for her relationship with her teenage daughter, Allegra, and the two have become practically strangers to each other. When Allegra hangs out with a new crowd and is arrested for drug possession, Francesca gives in to her mother's wish that they take one epic summer vacation to trace their family roots in Italy. What she never expected was to be faced with the choice of a lifetime....

When Belle started writing to Enrico, she certainly wasn't looking to fall in love! Everything about his life in southern Italy is so different to hers - but somehow, across half the world, a magical friendship forms. And so, when Enrico signs off one of his messages, P.S. Come to Italy, Belle decides to follow her heart!

Italy, 1945. "Where am I"? The young man wakes, bewildered. He sees olive trees against a bright blue sky. A soft voice soothes him. "We saw you fall from your plane. The parachute saved you". He remembers nothing of his life, or the war that has torn the world apart...but where does he belong? England, present day. Antique-shop-owner Susannah wipes away a tear as she tidies her grandmother’s belongings. Elsie’s memories are fading, and every day Susannah feels further away from her only remaining family.

Marvellously atmospheric tale of strangers summoned to a grand but neglected villa on the Italian coast. Each of them has been named in a will, but nobody knows their benefactress.... Four very different people are named in a will. Delia, an opera singer robbed of her voice by illness; George, an idealistic scientist who cannot face what his skills have created; Marjorie, desperately poor and unable to dislodge her writer’s block; and Lucius, ostensibly in control but whose personal life is in chaos.

Stella has life under control - and that's the way she likes it. For 25 years, she's been the trusted assistant to a legendary fashion designer, but after her boss dies suddenly, she's left with nothing to do apart from clear the studio. It seems as though the life she wanted has vanished. She is lost - until one day she finds a house swap website and sees a beautiful old villa in a Southern Italian village. Could she really exchange her poky London flat for that?

Perfect for fans of warm contemporary women's fiction from Jo Thomas and Adriana Trigiani, Nicky Pellegrino returns with a perfect summer listen. Janetta has never wanted to live a small, everyday sort of life. She's an adventurer, a food writer who travels the world visiting far-flung places and eating unusual things. Now she is about to embark on her biggest adventure yet - a relationship. She has fallen in love with an Italian man and is moving to live with him in Venice, where she will help him run his small guesthouse.

Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women - Julia, Camille, and Susan - all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany.

Anna is distraught when her beloved mother, Ines, passes away. She inherits a box of papers, handwritten in Italian and yellowed with age, and a tantalizing promise that the truth about what happened during the war lies within. The diaries lead Anna to the small village of Rofelle, where she slowly starts to heal as she explores sun-kissed olive groves, and pieces together her mother’s past: happy days spent herding sheep across Tuscan meadows cruelly interrupted when World War Two erupted and the Nazis arrived....

The Villa Girls is the story of four young women who decide that wherever they are in the world and whatever they're doing they'll meet every few years for a holiday together somewhere sunny. Despite life taking them in very different directions, their snatched days in the sun in little hidden villas are crucial to them all. Escape, celebration, recovery - over the years the holidays change their lives.

The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot - searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence as well as the Italian Renaissance, which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.