About the Author

For the record, I feel dumb writing this. I can’t decide if I’m writing an acceptance speech for a Rotary Club citizen’s award or my obituary.

But nonetheless, let’s begin.

You see, it all began with a journey. A year in off-the-beaten-path Italy with 2 parents, 3 children, and 2 cats. As one does, I chronicled that year of finding belonging in a medieval Italian hill town with a blog, Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center. I imagined the blog as an exploration of village life, but I had no idea how much that life would change me. Once home, I published Il Bel Centro: a Year in the Beautiful Center which was named one of Huffington Post’s “10 Fascinating Reads about Living in a Foreign Country.”  The book is available in print, ebook, or audiobook, wherever you get your books, click here to find IBC in your preferred marketplace.

By popular demand, you can now find all sorts of extra IBC content, including book club questions and FAQs, right here. Did you read IBC and want to know what happened when our family returned to American soil? Click here to get the epilogue.

Once home, I missed the rhythms and people of small town Italy something awful. So tumbled back into Italy by way of writing the Santa Lucia novel series. The four books star the kind of characters that populate small town Italy—I love hearing from readers how the books make them feel like they have magically transported to the Italian peninsula. You can get the first of those bestselling books for free by signing up for my once-monthly newsletter, the Grapevine, which also allows you to keep up with my travels and food adventures. Or you can find them here on my website, or wherever you get your books, in electronic, paper, or audio format. For those who want to be sure to read them in order, they are Santa Lucia, The Silent Madonna, The Stillness of Swallows, and finally Into the Groves.

After writing four books in the Santa Lucia series, I gathered other traveling parents to create a manual to help others families leap into the arms of adventure. I’m so proud of how The Road Taken: How to Dream, Plan, and Live Your Family Adventure Abroad has encouraged people to create new paths for themselves. In addition, I worked with my Italian teacher, and many people’s favorite “character” in Il Bel Centro, to write Tales from my Zia Faustina: Folklore of Old Umbria.

Since then, I’ve been working on my new Murder in an Italian Village series. Such fun to create a new Italian hill-town with its own cast of characters, dramas, mythology, and, yes, murders. But these are cozy mysteries, which means no gore. Plus they star an amateur sleuth, a half-Italian chef named Stella, who uses her culinary wisdom to solve crimes (with her cat at her side). The first of the series is Death in Aramezzo and followed by Bread and Murder in Aramezzo, Unmasked in Aramezzo, and I’m currently working on Making a Killing in Aramezzo. As with all my books, you can find it right here on my website, along with anywhere you like to get your books.

This is all more than you wanted to know, isn't it? :)

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