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An American woman discovers the magic of Tuscany in this delightful novel from the acclaimed author of "The Last Time I Saw Paris." …More

In the sumptuous tradition of Chocolat and Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and already optioned for a major motion picture, The Wedding Officer is a magical tale of romantic passion and culinary delight set in the intoxicating Italian countryside. …More

A MASS Book Award winner
In the spirit of Corelli's Mandolin and Chocolat, A Kiss from Maddalena is a captivating novel that celebrates the beauty of life and the passions of youth. …More

In glittering 18th-century Venice, music and love are prized above all else--and for two sisters coming of age, the city's passions blend in intoxicating ways. …More

The "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Christmas Box" spins a passionate and bittersweet novel set in Italu--an all-too-human tale about the tragedy and triumph of love. …More

The author of "The Sixteen Pleasures" returns with this exhilarating novel ofromance, art, and food in Florence. …More

The last of Hemingway's full-length novels to be published during his lifetime. Across the River and into the Trees is a poignant love story set in Venice during World War II. Taking place over a period of only hours, this tender and moving novel conjures up the magic of Venice--the canals, the bars, and the cosmopolitan hotel life--and captures in Hemingway's inimitable voice the tragedies of war on their most personal level. …More

"Acutely observed...charmingly old-fashioned."--"Los Angeles Times
In Italian Fever, Valerie Martin redefines the Gothic novel in a compelling tale of one woman's headlong tumble into a mystery, art, and eros.
Part romance, part gothic suspense story and wholly entertaining, Italian Fever is the story of the awakening of Lucy Stark, an American pragmatist. Lucy leads a quiet, solitary life working for a best-selling (but remarkably untalented) writer. When he dies at his villa in Tuscany, Lucy flies to Tuscany to settle his affairs. What begins as a grim chore soon threatens Stark's Emersonian self-reliance--and her very sense of what is real. The villa harbors secrets: a missing manuscript, neighbors whose Byzantine arrogance veils their dark past, a phantom whose nocturnal visits tear a gaping hole in Lucy's well-honed skepticism. And to complicate matters: Massimo, a married man whose tender attentions render Lucy breathless.
Smart, sophisticated, achingly beautiful, Italian Fever is one of the most original and compelling novels of the year. …More

Now a major motion picture from USA Films starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sean Penn, and director Philip Haas.

In Up at the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham portrays a wealthy young English woman who finds herself confronted rather brutally by the repercussions of whimsy.

On the day her older and prosperous friend asks her to marry him, Mary Leonard demurs and decides to postpone her reply a few days. But driving into the hills above Florence alone that evening, Mary offers a ride to a handsome stranger. And suddenly, her life is utterly, irrevocably altered.

For this stranger is a refugee of war, and he harbors more than one form of passion. Before morning, Mary will witness bloodshed, she will be forced to seek advice and assistance from an unsavory man, and she will have to face the truth about her own yearnings. Erotic, haunting, and maddeningly suspenseful, Up at the Villa is a masterful tale of temptation and the capricious nature of fate. …More

Celestria Montague always spends her summers at Pendrift Hall, the rambling Cornish mansion that has been home to the Montague family for generations. It is 1958, and the family is celebrating her father's fiftieth birthday at a lavish ball. The gala event ends in tragedy and death, and young Celestria learns that the family may lose Pendrift Hall. At her grandfather's urging, Celestria plays detective in an effort to solve the mysteries surrounding the night's events -- and to save the ancient estate if at all possible. Her quest takes her to Italy's rugged, beautiful Puglia, and into the dark, cool cloisters of the Convento di Santa Maria del Mare. Here, Celestria meets an enigmatic stranger -- a man who teaches her that truth is at the heart of all love. …More

The author of "Home to Italy" offers a story of two men who visit the old country, where forgotton secrets may hold the key to a new lease on life. …More

Having lost her money to an unscrupulous accountant and her reputation as America's favorite self-help guru, Dr. Isabel Favor needs some breathing room. In Italy, Isabel catches the eye of Hollywood's favorite bad guy on a magical night in Tuscany. …More

Since childhood, Rosa Fiore--daughter of a Sicilian matriarch and her hapless husband--found solace in her family's kitchen or "La Cucina", the heart of the family's estate. But there are other loves to be found, and hard won, in life. …More

In the immediate aftermath of World War I, Hugh Thurne, a British diplomat involved in the peace negotiations, decides to flee to his second home in Venice rather than return to his wife and the charade of his marriage in London. Although profoundly disturbed about the long-term prospects for peace, he has faith in the city's power to raise his spirits. Hugh eagerly looks forward to visits with his old friends Giacomo and Valentina Venier in their dilapidated palazzo on the Grand Canal; to dallying with a young opera singer, Emanuela; and to the arrival of Violet Mancroft, the widow of his best friend lost in the war. What he does not anticipate is the shadow lying over the Venier family's future. Nor has he reckoned with the vagaries of his own human heart. Evoking the beauty of Venice, "By the Grand Canal" is a novel about premonition for the future and the war it portends, about death and memory, and also about an unexpected love between two old friends. …More

Sophia Giambelli has never had to worry about competition. For three generation, the Giambelli wines have been renowned for their quality- from Napa Valley to Italy, and throughout the world. The pride of the Giambelli family, and a top PR executive, Sophia loves her job- and excels at it.
But things are about to change at Villa Giambelli. Tereza, the matriarch, has decreed that a merger will take place with the MacMillan family's winery- and Sophia will be taking a new role. As a savvy business-woman, she knows she has to be prepared for anything...but she isn't prepared for Tyler MacMillian. They've been ordered to work together very closely, to make the merger as smooth as possible. Sophia must teach Ty the finer points of marketing and promotion- and Ty, in turn, shows her how to get down and dirty, to use the sun, rain, and earth to coax the sweetest grapes from the vineyard. But as they toil together, both in and out of the fields, Sophia is torn between a powerful attraction and a professional rivalry. At the end of the season, the course of the company's future- and the legacy of the Villa- may take an entirely new direction. And when acts of sabotage threaten both the family business and the family itself, Sophia's quest will be not only for dominance, but survival.... …More

The Edge of Impropriety
By Rosenthal, Pam
2008-11 - Signet Book
9780451222305 Find It

2009 RITA Winner for Best Historical Romance
Break the sensual boundaries of Regency England with the bestselling author of The Slightest Provocation.

The ribald private life of novelist Countess Marina Wyatt is the stuff of public scandal, and it doesn't hurt the sale of her romances either. But she's totally unprepared for her consuming new affair with Jasper James Hedges, noted art appraiser and her former lover's uncle. In Marina, Jasper sees a work of art of another kind. And for all of Marina's passionate inventions, nothing can compare to what Jasper delivers: an erotic and dangerous voyage to the edge of impropriety and beyond. …More

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-THE MIRACLES OF SANTO FICO was published in Warner hardcover in 1/03, with a first printing of 36,000 copies. It received widespread acclaim in publications, including a starred review in "Kirkus Reviews, and was a Booksense 76 pick.- Film rights have been optioned by Tailor-Made Films.- This heartwarming story follows in the tradition of such bestselling novels as "Chocolat (Viking, 1999) and "The Sixteen Pleasures (Soho Press, 1994).- Foreign rights were sold in Australia, Bulgaria, England, Germany, Holland, Japan, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. …More

Clio Lambert's first encounter with bestselling author Paul Costello is not an auspicious one. He seems an arrogant, demanding man, used to getting his own way. But when he offers her a job as his editorial assistant, working on a book about Italy during the Second World War, Clio cannot resist, for it will entail a prolonged stay in Rome. With no dependents other than three elderly relatives living in the cathedral town of Wells, it seems an offer too good to refuse. Comfortably ensconced in a small pensione, Clio prepares to enjoy her Roman spring. Though Costello's extended Italian family are not unanimously welcoming, she is befriended by his cousin Luigi di Palma, who takes it upon himself to show her the city's sights. But as Clio and Paul start to delve deeper into the history of Italy's Partisans ? and the role of the di Palma family during that painful period of its history ? it becomes clear that her job will be much more challenging, and more personal, than she had ever anticipated. …More

When in Rome, do as Audrey Hepburn would do. Failing that, run off with your ex-boyfriend, carry suspicious packages through customs, and lie to the person who loves you. . . .

Georgie Beauchamp is totally happy and in love with her wonderful, dependable boyfriend, David. So why does she always daydream about running into her gorgeous ex-boyfriend Mike? It can't mean she's still in love with him--especially since the cad dumped her so horribly. As luck would have it, when Georgie's daydream actually comes true, she is dressed in unglamorous sweats and carrying a curtain rod down the street, while Mike is driving an expensive sports car and looking better than Brad Pitt at the Oscars. She longs to have the glamorous life Mike can offer--and starts to think that he might want her back in his arms.

But when he invites her for a weekend in Rome, Georgie is torn. David has always said he'd take her there for the romantic getaway of a lifetime, but his work keeps him totally tied up. So she must choose: David, all comfort and reliability, or Mike, all flirtation and butterfly-stomachs. The decision isn't too hard to make, and faster than she can say Vespa, she's off to Rome with Mike, full of plans to frolic on the Spanish Steps and sip wine in intimate trattorias. But when David shows up unexpectedly, this roman holiday gets a hell of a lot more complicated. . . . …More