Meet Me in Italy

A heartfelt romcom about a novelist facing a broken marriage and writer’s block who puts the pieces of her life back together via a trip to Italy.

With the release of Meet Me in Italy, prolific author Brenda Novak treats readers to another deeply engaging, multi-layered romance that starts in California and ultimately unspools amidst the rugged Amalfi Coast of Italy.

The story launches at the nadir of Charlotte Williams-Jackson’s life. The life of this 20-something, California-based novelist is upended when her NBA-player husband abruptly walks away from their marriage of four years--he just doesn’t “want to be married anymore.” Unmoored and disoriented by the split, Charlotte moves back in with her parents.

With her life in an emotional tailspin, Charlotte succumbs to a severe depression that solidifies into writer’s block. As she struggles to meet a deadline to finish her second novel, Charlotte reconnects with local, old friends, Sloane and her twin brother, Julian—both of whom are also facing personal life crises.

When Charlotte receives a letter informing her that she was adopted and has an orphaned, 12-year-old half-sister who lives in Italy, the torpor of her life suddenly shifts. She, along with Sloane and Julian set off on an Italian adventure that enlightens Charlotte to the truth of who she really is and what she really wants out of life.

A strong premise, a well-drawn cast of characters, and a passionate, colorful Italian backdrop make for an exciting literary journey. Novak (The Summer That Changed Everything) nicely entwines many meaningful story threads that weave together to form a powerfully heartfelt, happily-ever-after.

 

Meet Me in Italy by Brenda Novak

MIRA (HarperCollins), $18.99 Paperback, 9780778305811, 400 pages

Publication Date: April 7, 2026

To order this book on Bookshop.org, link HERE

Learn more about author Brenda Novak HERE

Wish I Were Here

An adventurous, open-hearted romcom about an exacting mathematician and a quirky, fun-loving doorman who set out on a journey of self-discovery.

Wish I Were Here by Melissa Wiesner is an adventurous and open-hearted romantic comedy about a precise and exacting mathematician whose world is turned upside-down in a case of missing identity. 

Catherine Lipton of Pittsburgh, Penn. is thrilled when she’s offered a university math professorship. However, when the college requests original documents for her employment file, the single, 29-year-old learns she doesn’t exist. Her birth certificate and Social Security information aren’t even found in any databases. This forces Catherine to find a way to substantiate her existence.

Catherine seeks the help of her career-averse, bohemian father, who has lived intent on pursuing his dreams of clown performing—juggling, his specialty. As a single dad who raised Catherine--Catherine’s mother walked out on them--he refuses to help Catherine’s search for her mother who might retain the original documents needed for Catherine’s dream job. Desperate, Catherine accepts help offered by Luca Morelli, the handsome, heavily tattooed, artsy doorman who oversees her apartment building, which is filled with fun-loving octogenarians. The somewhat sinister connections offered by Luca and those in his orbit steep Catherine in unexpected complications, while offering readers amusingly plotted twists and turns. 

 

Female protagonists whose lives comedically derail, forcing them to change, are hallmarks of Wiesner’s (The Second Chance Year) cleverly inventive romcoms. In Wish I Were Here, she builds on this foundation with great charm and wit.

 

Wish I Were Here by Melissa Wiesner

Forever, $17.99 paperback, 9781538741948, 368 pages

Publication Date: October 15, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review as originally published on Shelf Awareness (October 18, 2024), link HERE 

The Year of What If

An enlightened, feel-good novel about a middle-aged woman who goes on a quest to revisit her past in order map out her future. 

Just when it appears as though 42-year-old Carla Carter--a divorced dating expert and entrepreneur--is about to start a glorious new chapter in her life, a visit to a psychic upends her hoped for ‘happy ending’ in Phaedra Patrick’s enlightened, feel-good new novel, The Year of What If. 

Carla is emerging from a sordid past. A supposed curse was said to be placed upon her family many years before that has familial folks believing that all females in the bloodline will never find true and lasting love. Carla has always attributed the hex to her first, regrettable (and forgettable) first marriage. 

After she establishes Logical Love, a dating app, and the algorithm pairs her up with Tom, a game inventor who later becomes her fiancé, it would appear as though Carla is on the road to a fresh, new start…and she’ll finally be the one to break the dreaded spell. 

Her superstitious family, however, intervenes and forces Carla to visit a psychic who urges that Tom isn’t the man she should marry. Rather, she believes a man Carla met twenty years before, during Carla’s ‘gap-year’ after college graduation, is really the love of her life. 

Upon the urging of the psychic and her family, Carla cannot rest. She sets off on a quest--not telling Tom about the nature of her travels--through Europe in search of looking up men who might’ve crossed her path during that oh-so-innocent time in her life. 

With signature insight and tender humor, Patrick (The Little Italian Hotel, The Messy Lives of Book People) once again takes readers on an exciting, adventurous literary journey where one woman’s search for a former flame actually leads her down a path to self-discovery.

The Year of What If: A Novel by Phaedra Patrick

Park Row Books/HarperCollins, $17.99 paperback, 978-0778310891, 336 pages

Publishing Date: June 25, 2024

To order this book on INDIEBOUND/Bookshop.Org, link HERE