Novel set in LAGOS and SOMERSET
10 Great Love Stories set in ITALY
13th February 2025
10 great love stories set in Italy
Love stories set in Italy often evoke a sense of passion, romance, and the ‘la dolce vita’. The country’s romantic atmosphere, with its stunning scenery, delicious food, and passionate culture, provides a captivating backdrop for tales of love and longing.
From the sun-drenched beaches of the Amalfi Coast to the charming cobblestone streets of Rome to the canals of Venice, Italy offers a diverse array of settings for romantic encounters. These stories often explore the enduring power of love amidst the beauty of the Italian landscape.
Here are ten of our favourites:
Love in Another Time by Lexa Dudley – SARDINIA
England, 1947. Ellie Montford is sent to boarding school by her cold and distant parents, joining her best friend’s family on their farm for the holidays. She forges a bond with her friend’s brother, Simon, who promises to marry her – but childhood promises may not last…
Sardinia, 1961. Ellie, now a young woman, joins her parents in Cagliari, where her father works for the Foreign Office. Attending classes at the local university she meets Gino, a young professor.
Is he really everything he claims? Or is their love doomed to fail?
Sardinia, 2006. Ellie’s granddaughter Sara is sent by her company to Cagliari. On a night out, she meets Luca, an archaeologist and professor. Their love affair mirrors that of her grandmother and Gino’s from over forty years before.
Their happiness is short-lived as Sara finds hints of a long-buried secret which could separate them. Who is Luca, and what is his connection to Gino?
Sara must find the answers before she can find happiness and make her family whole again.
The Lemon Tree Hotel by Rosanna Ley – CINQUE TERRE
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. Meanwhile, Isabella is preoccupied with the second guest, a mysterious young man who seems to know a lot about the history of the old convent and the people who live there. Isabella is determined to find out his true intentions and discover the secret past of the Lemon Tree Hotel.
A Venetian Affair by Andrea di Robilant – VENICE
It’s hard to imagine a more romantic real-life story than the long and forbidden love affair of the 18th-century Venetian nobleman Andrea Memmo and a half-English beauty named Giustiniana Wynne. Andrea Di Robilant’s A Venetian Affair is drawn in part from a cache of letters discovered by the author’s father in his ancestral palazzo on the Grand Canal. In 1753, his ancestor Andrea Memmo had been introduced to a lovely girl of uncertain station (illegitimate, although her parents later married). The Wynnes’ position was precarious enough in Venice’s rigid society, and Giustiniana’s mother took every step to prevent the young aristocrat from corrupting her daughter. But the two lovers began to meet in secret: exchanging letters through confederates and communicating in public through an elaborate code of nods and gestures. They even came within a few days of being married before further dark revelations about Giustiniana’s family put a permanent end to their hopes. Although Memmo went on to have an illustrious career in the dying Venetian Republic, it is Giustiniana’s astonishing later life that really captures the reader. A Venetian Affair provides both a rich picture of the times–including cameo appearances by Casanova–and a convincing account of an enduring passion.
Emerald Coast by Anita Hughes – PORTO CERVO
Set on the glamorous Italian island, Anita Hughes’s Emerald Coast is a touching and humorous story about marriage and the difficulty of finding love and happiness at the same time.
Lily Bristol arrives at a luxurious resort in Sardinia for the grand opening of her newest home furnishing store on the Emerald Coast. She’s a successful business woman with an international chain of stores from San Francisco to Milan. Thirty-two and newly divorced, she’s ready to handle things on her own. At least until her private butler, Enzo, escorts her to a beautiful suite where she notices a suspiciously familiar pair of men’s slippers and shaving kit.
Lily is horrified. Her ex-husband Oliver moved out of their restored Connecticut farmhouse six months ago, but they booked this trip when they were trying to save their marriage and never cancelled the reservation. Oliver, a food critic for the New York Times, is here covering Sardinia’s hottest new restaurant. The only other available room is the adjoining suite; and worse, Oliver isn’t alone. He’s brought a twenty-something named Angela with him.
Lily is determined to make do and enlists Enzo to find her a suitable man. But it’s not as easy to find new love as they both expected. When Lily and Oliver find themselves alone on a very important night, they turn to each other. Sparks begin to fly, but can they be together without breaking each other’s hearts?
Love and Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch – TUSCANY
A summer in Italy turns into a road trip across Tuscany in this sweeping debut novel filled with romance, mystery, and adventure.
Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn t in the mood for Italy s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She s only there because it was her mother s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.
But then Lina is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept from Lina for far too long. It s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
Love at the Italian Lake by Darcie Boleyn – LAKE GARDA
On the shores of Lake Garda, a beautiful romance unfolds. But is it only for summer? Don’t miss this gorgeous, heart-warming novel from Darcie Boleyn, bestselling author of 2017 smash-hit Summer at Conwenna Cove.
Sophia Bertoni discovers her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and realizes her life is going nowhere. Leaving her high-pressure job, she travels to Italy to stay with her grandmother while she figures out her next move.
When Sophia – quite literally – bumps into devastatingly handsome Joe Lancaster her plans are turned upside down. As the two realize they’re both spending the summer in the same town, a love affair seems on the cards.
But Sophia and Joe are both burdened by family secrets. Despite their attraction, will the sun set on Sophia and Joe’s romance – or will they find love at the Italian lake?
The Rome Affair by Karen Swan – ROME
The glamorous capital city of Italy is brought to startling life in The Rome Affair, a compelling summer novel by Karen Swan.
1974 and Elena Damiani lives a gilded life. Born to wealth and a noted beauty, no door is closed to her, no man can resist her. At twenty-six, she is already onto her third husband when she meets her love match. But he is the one man she can never have, and all the beauty and money in the world can’t change it.
2017 and Francesca Hackett is living la dolce vita in Rome, leading tourist groups around the Eternal City and forgetting the ghosts she left behind in London. When she finds a stolen designer handbag in her dustbin and returns it, she is brought into the orbit of her grand neighbour who lives across the piazza – famed socialite Viscontessa Elena dei Damiani Pignatelli della Mirandola. Though the purse is stolen, Elena greets the return of the bag with exultation for it contains an unopened letter written by her husband on his deathbed, twelve years earlier.
Mutually intrigued by each other, the two women agree to collaborate on a project, with Cesca interviewing Elena for her memoirs. As summer unfurls, Elena tells her sensational stories, leaving Cesca in her thrall. But when a priceless diamond ring found in an ancient tunnel below the city streets is ascribed to Elena, Cesca begins to suspect a shocking secret at the heart of Elena’s life.
Under the Italian Sun by Sue Moorcroft – UMBRIA
A sun-baked terrace. The rustle of vines. And the clink of wine glasses as the first cork of the evening is popped…
Welcome to Italy. A place that holds the answer to Zia-Lucia Costa Chalmers’ many questions. Not least, how she ended up with such a mouthful of a name.
When revelations close to home turn Zia’s world upside down,she realises the time has come to search out the Italian family she’s never known.
But as she looks for answers, she can’t help but notice Piero, the vineyard owner next door – a distraction who may prove difficult to ignore…
This summer, join Zia as she sets out to uncover her past. But can she find the future she’s always dreamed of along the way?
The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato – VENICE
Wonderful combination of mystery, historical intrigue and love, written by an English/Venetian author, which tells a story of passion, genius and betrayal linking the present and the past. Nora Manin decides to leave her fractured life in London to start again in Venice, and there begins to unravel the story of her ancestor, Corradino Manin, the greatest artist of glass that the island of Murano ever produced. Already established as a European bestselling novel, with over 100,000 copies sold in Europe to date.
Urban Venus by Sara Downing – FLORENCE
Contemporary and historical fiction meet in this love story set in present-day and Renaissance Italy.
Broken-hearted art student, Lydia Irvine, spends her days wandering the atmospheric streets of Florence, soaking up the culture in its galleries and museums. She develops a strong pull to one painting in particular, Titian’s ‘Venus of Urbino’ in the Uffizi Gallery. Lydia frequently falls asleep in front of the painting and starts to believe the dreams she has in the gallery ‘transport’ her to another time and place.
Who is this woman she becomes in the dreams and what is she trying to tell Lydia? With the help of her charmingly handsome tutor, Vincenzo Tizzaro, she starts to research the life of the artist and becomes deeply embroiled in the mystery which is beginning to unfold. Through the dreams, Lydia learns far more about the Renaissance era than she ever could from the history books, but when her life is put in danger, has she taken it all a step too far?
Enjoy our selection of Love Stories set in Italy!
Tony for the TripFiction Team
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