There exists in some hearts a sort of wanderlust—not merely the wish to travel, but the deeper longing to become somewhere else entirely. If you have turned the final page of Frances Mayes’s beloved Under the Tuscan Sun and found yourself bereft, gazing wistfully at nothing in particular, then you understand this feeling most intimately.
Fear not, dear reader. For there are books aplenty that shall transport you to sun-drenched hillsides, crumbling farmhouses awaiting restoration, and new chapters of life written in languages not quite your own. Here, then, are the finest books for those who wish to lose themselves once more in tales of reinvention, romance, and the extraordinary courage it takes to begin again.
Falling Down Under by Errin Krystal
If ever there was a book that understood the magic of starting over—of trading everything familiar for something wonderfully, terrifyingly unknown—it is this gem of a novel set in the wine country of rural Australia.
Our heroine, Georgia Bailey, finds herself spectacularly at rock bottom. Her father has died, her inheritance has vanished into the grasping hands of an unkind stepmother, and her rock-star boyfriend has proven himself to be the sort of person one ought never to have trusted in the first place. What is a woman to do but flee to the other side of the world?
At her grandparents’ vineyard in Wattle Valley, Georgia discovers not merely a job as a waitress, but something far more precious: a chance to remember who she was before life got terribly complicated. There is the matter of her childhood sweetheart, now a rather grumpy chef with whom she must work in close quarters. There are family secrets threatening the vineyard’s very existence. And there is, delightfully, a kangaroo who frequents the parking lot as though he owns the place.
Readers have called it “the ultimate second-chance romance” and “like spending a day with close friends.” One declared it “a great escape” that left her with “a warm, satisfied feeling.” The Australian setting positively shimmers with authenticity—one Australian reviewer noted she “had to laugh at how accurate it was.”
This is the first book in the Seven Sisters Vineyard series, though it stands perfectly complete on its own with the happiest of endings. It is the sort of book one reads in a single sitting, staying up far too late, because sleep is for the weak when a story is this good.
Read a sample of Falling Down Under
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
In this most delightful of memoirs, Peter Mayle and his wife abandon the grey drizzle of England for a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse in the Lubéron. What follows is a year of mishaps, feasts, and the particular joy of discovering that one’s new neighbours are infinitely more interesting than one’s old ones.
The book unfolds month by month, and food appears on nearly every page—described with such loving attention that you may find yourself quite desperately hungry. There are truffle hunters and goat races, obstinate builders and the fearsome mistral wind. Through it all, Mayle maintains the sort of wry humour that makes even plumbing disasters seem rather romantic.
A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena De Blasi
Here is a love story so improbable it could only be true. Marlena, an American chef quite certain she was done with romance, locks eyes with a Venetian stranger across the Piazza San Marco. Within months, she has sold her house, kissed her grown sons goodbye, and moved to Venice to marry a man she barely knows.
The memoir that follows is as sumptuous as a Venetian feast, filled with recipes and the sort of wisdom one only gains from leaping into the unknown with both feet.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Four very different women—two trapped in dreary marriages, one fleeing shallow society, one clinging to her Victorian past—pool their resources to rent a medieval castle on the Italian Riviera for one enchanted month. What happens next is nothing short of transformation.
Written in 1922 and set among wisteria and Mediterranean light, this novel understands something essential: that sometimes we must leave everything behind to find what we were looking for all along.
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
This sweeping novel begins in 1962, when a young actress arrives at a tiny Italian hotel on the Ligurian coast, sent away from the filming of Cleopatra in Rome. Fifty years later, the story continues in modern Hollywood, weaving together tales of love, ambition, and the beautiful ruins we all become.
It is romantic and satirical in equal measure, spanning decades and continents while never losing its heart.
The Hills of Tuscany by Ferenc Máté
Some readers prefer this memoir even to Mayes’s original. Ferenc Máté and his painter wife arrive from New York knowing almost no Italian, with four weeks to find a home. Their discovery of La Marinaia—a stone farmhouse with cypress-lined drive and views like living inside a painting—launches five years of adventures that are by turns buoyant, reflective, and laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
After a devastating divorce, Elizabeth Gilbert embarked on a year-long journey to find herself again. In Italy, she mastered the art of pleasure and gained twenty-three happy pounds. In India, she sought devotion. In Bali, she found unexpected love.
This memoir sold over thirty million copies because it speaks to something universal: the courage it takes to rebuild a life from scratch.
The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater
When actress Carol Drinkwater and her fiancé discover an abandoned ten-acre olive farm near Cannes, they find not merely property but sixty-eight four-hundred-year-old olive trees awaiting resurrection. This lyrical memoir follows their transformation of the land and themselves.
Almost French by Sarah Turnbull
An Australian journalist takes a week-long trip to Paris and stays eight years. Her memoir of learning French customs—the mortifying social disasters, the cultural collisions, the slow falling in love with a city and a Frenchman—is as charming as it is honest.
One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
When Katy’s mother dies before their long-planned trip to Positano, Katy goes alone—and encounters something impossible. This novel about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, unfolds against the stunning backdrop of the Amalfi Coast.
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
Young Lucy Honeychurch travels to Florence and finds her ordered English world turned delightfully upside down. This Edwardian classic, both romance and social satire, reminds us that Italy has been working its transformative magic on visitors for over a century.
Finding Your Next Escape
Each of these books offers what Mayes first gave us: the promise that it is never too late to begin again, that beauty awaits in unexpected places, and that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is say yes to an adventure we never planned.
Whether you choose the vineyards of Australia, the canals of Venice, or the hills of Tuscany, may your reading transport you somewhere wonderful. And may you return, as all the best travellers do, somehow changed.
