Some Background to In Italy For Love

Each book I write seems to grow slightly differently and have its own backstory and In Italy For Love is no different.

I was able to take a short, dedicated research trip for this one, which made the descriptions a dream to write, but also gave me so many little details that could never make their way into the book.

The setting is Cividale del Friuli, a small city just outside Udine in the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, that traces its roots back to the time of Julius Caesar. Now I love a mediaeval town, but when I arrived for my research trip, it was the river that captivated me – and the forested hills and the Friulian plain. What I’d thought would be a book steeped in history and architecture, became a story about learning to appreciate the natural world in the autumn.

Here are a few photos of the area to show you what I mean:

Another part of a story was directly inspired by my experience fifteen years ago. My husband and I were waiting for our work visas to become valid (long story), and we had four weeks, but not a lot of money, so we signed up to the WWOOF programme (‘Willing Workers on Organic Farms’). We stayed on a farm in Alsace in France for two weeks and did another two-week stint volunteering at an organic produce fair in Brittany and the time certainly left an impression on me.

We spent our time in France as we were learning French at the time (it was a great way to learn French), but the programme still exists and there are many farms in Italy, so I used my experiences to create the ‘Azienda agricola biologica Due Pini’, the organic farm in the book.

Here are some photos of my organic adventure: