"At villa Donnafugata, long ago is never very far away," writes bestselling author Marlena de Blasi of the magnificent if somewhat ruined castle in the mountains of Sicily that she stumbles upon one summer while traveling with her husband. There de Blasi is befriended by Tosca, the patroness of the villa, who shares her own unforgettable love story. In a luminous and tantalizing voice, de Blasi re-creates Tosca's life and romance with the last prince of Sicily descended from the French nobles of Anjou. But when Prince Leo attempts to better the lives of his peasants, his defiance of the local Mafia costs him dearly. The present-day narrative finds Tosca sharing her considerable inherited wealth with a harmonious society composed of many of the women-now widowed-who once worked the prince's land alongside their husbands. This marvelous epic drama reminds us that in order to live a rich life, one must embrace both life's sorrow and its beauty.

Fernando first sees Marlena across the Piazza San Marco and falls in love from afar. When he sees her again in a Venice cafe a year later, he knows it is fate. He knows little English; she, a divorced American chef traveling through Italy, speaks only food-based Italian. Marlena thought she was done with romantic love, incapable of intimacy. Yet within months of their first meeting, she has quit her job, sold her house in St. Louis, kissed her two grown sons good-bye, and moved to Venice to marry the stranger, as she calls Fernando. This deliciously satisfying memoir is filled with the foods and flavors of Italy and peppered with culinary observations and recipes. But the main course here is an enchanting true story about a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, and finally finds the home she didn t even know she was missing."

'If you loved Under the Tuscan Sun, you'll love this' Red Magazine Every week on a Thursday evening, a group of four rural Italian women gather in an old stone house in the hills above Italy's Orvieto. There - along with their friend, Marlena - they cook together, sit down to a beautiful supper, drink their beloved local wines, and talk. Surrounded by candle light, good food and friendship, the four women tell Marlena their evocative life stories, and of cherished ingredients and recipes whose secrets have been passed down through generations.

When Fernando spots her in a Venice cafe and knows immediately that she is The One, Marlena de Blasi is caught off guard. A divorced American woman travelling through Italy, she thought she was satisfied with her life. Yet within a few months, she has left her job as a chef, sold her house, kissed her two grown-up kids goodbye and moved to Venice. Once there, she finds herself sitting in sugar-scented pasticcerie, strolling through 16th-century palazzi, renovating an apartment overlooking the seductive Adriatic Sea and preparing to wed a virtual stranger in an ancient stone church.;As this transplanted American learns the hard way about the peculiarities of Venetian culture, we are treated to an honest, often comic view of how two middle-aged people, both set in their ways but also set on being together, build a life. The book is filled with the foods and flavours of Italy and peppered with recipes and culinary observations. But the main course is about a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, and finally finds the home she didn't know she was missing.

Continuing from A Thousand Days in Venice, this is the story of Marlena and her Venetian husband, Fernando, as they make a life for themselves in rural Tuscany.;Amongst the many people they befriend is Barluzzo, an old sage who takes the couple under his wing and initiates them in the age-old traditions of Tuscan life: since their house lacks electricity, he helps them build a traditional brick oven in the garden; in autumn he wakes them at dawn to gather chestnuts and porcini mushrooms, and at the onset of winter he takes them to pull grapes from the vines and beat olives from the trees. Beautifully written and richly seasoned with mouth-watering recipes of the region, this book is filled with the carpe diem attitude that so captivated readers of A Thousand Days in Venice.

Marlena di Blasi seduced readers to fall in love with Venice, then Tuscany, with her popular and critically acclaimed books "A Thousand Days in Venice" and "A Thousand Days in Tuscany." Now she takes readers on a journey into the heart of Orvieto, an ancient city in the less-trodden region of Umbria. Rich with history and a vivid sense of place, her tale is by turns romantic and sensual, joyous and celebratory, as she and her husband search for a home in this city on a hill--finding one that turns out to be the former ballroom of a dilapidated sixteenth-century palazzo. Along the way, de Blasi befriends an array of colorful characters, including cooks and counts and shepherds and a lone violinist, cooking her way into the hearts of her Umbrian neighbors.
Brimming with life and kissed by romance, "The Lady in the Palazzo" perfectly captures the essence of a singular place and offers up a feast--and the recipes to prepare it --for readers of all stripes.

When Marlena moves with her husband to the small town of Orvieto to renovate a dilapidated medieval palazzo, she knows that the fastest way into the hearts and homes of her new neighbours is through their stomachs. In her third memoir about life in Italy, Marlena de Blasi returns with all of the sumptuous prose and delectable descriptions of the place she calls home, the food that she prepares, and best of all, the people she meets.

They had met and married on perilously short acquaintance, she an American chef and food writer, he a Venetian banker. Now they were taking another audacious leap, unstitching their ties with exquisite Venice to live in a roughly renovated stable in Tuscany.
Once again, it was love at first sight. Love for the timeless countryside and the ancient village of San Casciano dei Bagni, for the local vintage and the magnificent cooking, for the Tuscan sky and the friendly church bells. Love especially for old Barlozzo, the village mago, who escorts the newcomers to Tuscany's seasonal festivals; gives them roasted country bread drizzled with just-pressed olive oil; invites them to gather chestnuts, harvest grapes, hunt truffles; and teaches them to caress the simple pleasures of each precious day. It's Barlozzo who guides them across the minefields of village history and into the warm and fiercely beating heart of love itself.
A Thousand Days in Tuscany is set in one of the most beautiful places on earth-and tucked into its fragrant corners are luscious recipes (including one for the only true bruschetta) directly from the author's private collection.