Fiction Featuring Beautiful Italy

Emilia arrives in Rome reeling from heartbreak and reckoning with her past. What was supposed to be a romantic trip has, with the sudden end of a relationship, become a solitary one instead. As she wanders, music, art, food, and the beauty of Rome's wide piazzas and narrow streets color Emilia's dreamy, but weighty experience of the city. She considers the many facets of her life, drifting in and out of memory, following her train of thought wherever it leads. While climbing a hill near Trastevere, she meets John, an American expat living a seemingly idyllic life. They are soon navigating an intriguing connection, one that brings pain they both hold into the light. 

After her husband asks for a divorce on their anniversary, acclaimed radio host Ginny Splinter impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her on her holiday to Italy and, with her newfound friends, embarks on a vacation of healing and second chances.

When Katy's mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn't just Katy's mom, but her best friend and first phone call. To make matters worse, the mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the beautiful Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother's spirit. And then Carol appears for real-in the flesh, healthy and sun-tanned... and thirty years old. Katy doesn't understand what is happening, or how. But over the course of her time in Italy, Katy gets to know Carol in this new form, and soon she must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue. 

Aurora York had it all together: loving parents, a steady relationship, and a promising career. But after she loses both parents unexpectedly, she can't seem to stay on track any longer. Lonely and lost after a public meltdown that threatens her professional credibility, she's shocked when DNA test results show a blood relative in Sicily. When her cousin reaches out online and begs her to come to Italy to meet everyone in person, Aurora makes the leap. Aurora arrives in Sicily for a month, and there she meets a colorful, dynamic family steeped in tradition. 

'See Naples and die.' To Heddi those words ring true. There is nothing more heartbreakingly beautiful than this city built on Roman ruins and set against a sleeping volcano. Despite years of navigating the narrow, winding streets of Naples's Spanish Quarter, the city never fails to instill in her the pain of longing, a desire to belong. A place she wants to call home despite being l'americano or the American. For Heddi's group of university friends, Naples is either a refuge from their familial responsibilities or an entryway to a wider world. But for all of them, Naples is a place they'll never forget: the setting of their unrestrained youth. 

For Pricilla Messing, Italy will be an escape, a brief glimpse of freedom from a life that's starting to feel like one long decline. Cilla has been called to Rome to keep an eye on her wayward teenage niece, Hannah. But after years of caregiving her difficult mother, babysitting is the last thing Cilla wants to do. Instead, she throws herself into Hannah's youthful, heedless world: drinking, dancing, smoking, relishing the heady atmosphere of the Italian summer. 

A good deed leaves Sally stranded in wartime Italy, brandishing a biting wit, a fake passport, and an elastic sense of right and wrong. To save her friends and find her way home through a land of besieged castles and villas, Sally must combat tragedy with comedy, tie up pompous bureaucrats in their own red tape, force the cruel to be kind, and unravel the mystery, weight, and meaning of family. 

After spending two years in New York, Step returns to Rome. His memories of Babi have stayed with him all this time, and his biggest fear is the moment he sees her again. He also realizes that things have changed, and that, little by little, he will have to rebuild his life again in Italy, making new friends, getting a job, and starting a new life. When he meets Gin, an optimistic and special woman, it seems that maybe he can fall in love again and start anew after all. But it is not easy to forget Babi, and when he sees her again for the first time, he feels his whole world collapsing. . . Are second chances just wishes for dreamers or is it possible to relive the magic of first love?

Though she still misses her late husband, Carlo, Bria couldn't be happier that their dream bed and breakfast, Bella Bella, is humming along nicely. Of course, even on the stunning Amalfi Coast, things seldom run smoothly. Like Bria's mother and mother-in-law dueling over a suitable communion site for Bria's eight-year-old son Marco. Bria's also juggling the demands of the famous Chef Lugo, his producer, Massimo, and Pippa, a member of the production crew who is staying at Bella Bella for a nice, long-term stay... Until Lugo mysteriously dies on-camera, a victim of apparent murder. But finding out who wanted him gone is no stroll on the beach.

Cut from the Cleveland Browns after the worst performance in the history of the NFL, Rick Dockery, desperate to play football, is hired by the Panthers of Parma, Italy, and finds himself confronted by the confusing diversity of Italian culture, language, and romance.