[tps_header]Have you ever read a book set in Europe and instantly look up airfare prices on your phone? I was doing that this weekend while reading Anita Hughes’ new novel, Rome in Love. I frequently feel bouts of wanderlust, especially for Europe, with its old architecture and stunning sights. However, nothing makes me want to travel more than books. After living for a bit in a character’s shoes and reading about their experience abroad, I want that in real life too.
Click through the slideshow to see seven books that have me dying to make a trip to Europe.[/tps_header]
Rome in Love by Anita Hughes
Hughes takes us to Italy with a story about a rising star, a Roman Holiday remake, and a real princess-in-disguise. When we aren’t swept up in a whirlwind romance and Audrey Hepburn’s charming letters, we’re swooning over the locations Hughes details throughout the novel. More than just a backdrop, Rome is definitely a major character in this new romance novel.
Book Description: From the author of LAKE COMO comes the story of a young actress who lands the lead in a film that is shooting in Rome, bringing about difficult life choices, new friendships, and a chance at love.
When Amelia Tate is cast to play the Audrey Hepburn role in a remake of Roman Holiday, she feels as if all her dreams have come true. She has a handsome boyfriend, is portraying her idol in a major motion picture, and gets to live in beautiful Rome for the next two months.
Once there, she befriends a young woman named Sophie with whom she begins to explore the city. Together, they discover all the amazing riches that Rome has to offer. But when Amelia’s boyfriend breaks up with her over her acting career, her perfect world begins to crumble.
While moping in her hotel suite, Amelia discovers a stack of letters written by Audrey Hepburn that start to put her own life into perspective. Then, she meets Philip, a handsome journalist who is under the impression that she is a hotel maid, and it appears as if things are finally looking up. The problem is she can never find the right time to tell Philip her true identity. Not to mention that Philip has a few secrets of his own. Can Amelia finally have both the career and love that she’s always wanted, or will she be forced to choose again?
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With her sensory descriptions of the beautiful sites, decadent food, and high fashion of Rome, Hughes draws readers into this fast-paced and superbly written novel. Rome in Love will capture the hearts of readers everywhere.
Rome in Love by Anita Hughes is now available wherever books are sold.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
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This is an oldie, but goodie! One of the best, classic young adult novels takes us to the beautiful blue Santorini, Greece. Lena’s story is one of my favorites in the novel, and watching experience her family’s country for the first time was fascinating and dizzyingly romantic.
Book Description: Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn’t look all that great: they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them. But Tibby says they’re great. She’d love to have them. Lena and Bridget also think they’re fabulous. Lena decides that they should all try them on. Whoever they fit best will get them. Nobody knows why, but the pants fit everyone perfectly. Even Carmen (who never thinks she looks good in anything) thinks she looks good in the pants. Over a few bags of cheese puffs, they decide to form a sisterhood and take the vow of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants…the next morning, they say good-bye. And then the journey of the pants—and the most memorable summer of their lives—begins.
Just One Day & Just One Year by Gayle Forman
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I love these two books so much that I spend more time than I’d like to admit crafting screenplays for them in my head. (Oh, how it KILLS me that the producers of the film adaptations want to combine both books. Ugh.) What I like about this series is that it takes you to a few different places throughout western Europe. We visit England, France, the Netherlands, and more. I particularly like how that “one day” showed us some different parts of Paris that aren’t usually detailed in most novels. Besides the locales, this series is one of the best romantic coming of age stories I’ve read.
Just One Day Book Description: Allyson Healey’s life is exactly like her suitcase—packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything she’s not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform Allyson’s life.
A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the “accidents” of fate, Just One Day shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost…and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know.
Just One Year Book Description: Before you find out how their story ends, remember how it began…
When he opens his eyes, Willem doesn’t know where in the world he is—Prague or Dubrovnik or back in Amsterdam. All he knows is that he is once again alone, and that he needs to find a girl named Lulu. They shared one magical day in Paris, and something about that day—that girl—makes Willem wonder if they aren’t fated to be together. He travels all over the world, from Mexico to India, hoping to reconnect with her. But as months go by and Lulu remains elusive, Willem starts to question if the hand of fate is as strong as he’d thought…
The romantic, emotional companion to Just One Day, this is a story of the choices we make and the accidents that happen—and the happiness we can find when the two intersect.
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
The movie critic in me couldn’t help but love Anna, who also aspires to review films. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to go to boarding school in Paris, but I love how Perkins constructs this novel over the course of a school year. There are so many ups and downs that by the end I also feel like I got to experience Paris just like Anna did.
Book Description: Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris–until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all…including a serious girlfriend.
But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?
One Day by David Nicholls
One Day spans twenty years about two friends with a powerful connection. Full of ups and downs, new loves and heartbreaks, they always find their way back to each other. I loved how the novel begins in Scotland and as each year passes by, we visit Emma and Dexter in new places like London, Paris, and Rome.
Book Description: It’s 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another.
Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day—July 15th—of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself.
Twenty years, two people, one day.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
I’m pretty sure Scotland’s tourism industry got a bit of boost thanks to the popularity of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Like many others, I love this series and feel deeply connected to the characters. Gabaldon’s research of 18th century Scotland is extensive, and the setting is as big a character in the series as Claire and Jamie.
Book Description: The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
[tps_footer]All book descriptions were taken from Goodreads.com.[/tps_footer]
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