A professor rushes to the side of her injured childhood crush in this classic contemporary romance by a USA Today–bestselling author. Enrico DiRinaldi wants a wife and children, even though an accident has left him unable to walk. So, he proposes marriage to Gianna Lakewood. Having secretly always loved Rico, Gianna can’t say no. . . . The passion Rico ignites in his innocent bride is explosive! But when she realizes that Rico’s full recovery is imminent, and his beautiful ex-fiancée is waiting in the wings, Gianna is sure he won’t want her anymore. However, Rico is still intent on keeping his convenient wife by his side. . . . Originally published in 2004.

Billionaire Rafael Rocchi always has a woman in his bed, but never in his heart. Now he needs a suitable wife… When he meets Cristina, she is an ideal candidate: her plain-Jane looks mean she won’t be tempted to stray—and she’s a virgin! Cristina is devastated to learn that Rafael’s proposal was one of convenience. But whilst Rafael makes it clear their marriage isn’t based on love, he intends for it to be authentic in every other respect…

'I will pay you one million pounds to become my wife for one year. The marriage will not be consummated...' Italian aristocrat Lorenzo, Duce di Montesavro, needs to marry, and English tourist Jodie Oliver seems the ideal candidate for this convenient arrangement - her vulnerability is especially appealing to Lorenzo. But when he unleashes a desire Jodie never knew she possessed, Lorenzo is soon regretting his no-consummation rule.... Originally published in 2006

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year: A deliciously entertaining account of expatriate life in a small village just outside Verona, Italy. Tim Parks is anything but a gentleman in Verona. So after ten years of living with his Italian wife, Rita, in a typical provincial Italian neighborhood, the novelist found that he had inadvertently collected a gallery full of splendid characters. In this wittily observed account, Parks introduces readers to his home town, with a statue of the Virgin at one end of the street, a derelict bottle factory at the other, and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna in between. Via Colombare, the village’s main street, offers an exemplary hodgepodge of all that is new and old in the bel paese, a point of collision between invading suburbia and diehard peasant tradition. It is a world of creeping vines, stuccoed walls, shotguns, security cameras, hypochondria, and expensive sports cars. More than a mere travelogue, Italian Neighbors is a vivid portrait of the real Italy and a compelling story of how even the most foreign people and places gradually assume the familiarity of home. “One of the most delightful travelogues imaginable . . . so vivid, so packed with delectable details.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Why mince words? Beautiful Ruins is an absolute masterpiece.” — Richard Russo The acclaimed, award-winning author of the national bestseller The Financial Lives of the Poets returns with his funniest, most romantic, and most purely enjoyable novel yet: the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the Italian coast in 1962 . . . and is rekindled in Hollywood fifty years later. The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, deep in daydreams, looks out over the waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an American starlet, he soon learns, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. What unfolds is a dazzling roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow. Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams.

Bella, a painter, gets into a car accident with a luxury vehicle. Luckily, neither party is seriously injured, but the man who gets out of the other car is proud billionaire Rico, who is so handsome it is as if he were chiseled out of stone. His charm leaves Bella breathless, but he mistakes her for a hooker! Not caring about Bella’s outrage at the insult, he says that in exchange for the damage she has caused, he will buy…her?

In the wry but affectionate tradition of Bill Bryson, Ciao, America! is a delightful look at America through the eyes of a fiercely funny guest—one of Italy’s favorite authors who spent a year in Washington, D.C. When Beppe Severgnini and his wife rented a creaky house in Georgetown they were determined to see if they could adapt to a full four seasons in a country obsessed with ice cubes, air-conditioning, recliner chairs, and, of all things, after-dinner cappuccinos. From their first encounters with cryptic rental listings to their back-to-Europe yard sale twelve months later, Beppe explores this foreign land with the self-described patience of a mildly inappropriate beachcomber, holding up a mirror to America’s signature manners and mores. Succumbing to his surroundings day by day, he and his wife find themselves developing a taste for Klondike bars and Samuel Adams beer, and even that most peculiar of American institutions—the pancake house. The realtor who waves a perfect bye-bye, the overzealous mattress salesman who bounces from bed to bed, and the plumber named Marx who deals in illegally powerful showerheads are just a few of the better-than-fiction characters the Severgninis encounter while foraging for clues to the real America. A trip to the computer store proves just as revealing as D.C.’s Fourth of July celebration, as do boisterous waiters angling for tips and no-parking signs crammed with a dozen lines of fine print. By the end of his visit, Severgnini has come to grips with life in these United States—and written a charming, laugh-out-loud tribute.

“Ms. George proves that the classiest crime writers are true novelists.”—The New York Times Award-winning author Elizabeth George gives us an early glimpse into the lives of Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, forensic scientist Simon Allcourt-St. James, and Lady Helen Clyde in a superlative mystery that is also a fascinating inquiry into the crimes of the heart. Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton, has brought to Howenstow, his family home, the young woman he has asked to be his bride. But the savage murder of a local journalist is the catalyst for a lethal series of events that shatters the calm of a picturesque Cornwall village and embroils Lynley and St. James in a case far outside their jurisdiction—and a little too close to home. When a second death follows closely on the heels of the first, Lynley finds he can't help taking the investigation personally—because the evidence points to a killer within his own family. Praise for A Suitable Vengeance “Elizabeth George reigns as queen of the mystery genre. The Lynley books constitute the smartest, most gratifying complex and impassioned mystery series now being published.”—Entertainment Weekly “Ms. George can do it all, with style to spare.”—The Wall Street Journal “George goes to the head of the genre, with class.”—People

Describes what marriage should be according to the Bible, arguing that marriage is a tool to bring individuals closer to God, and provides meaningful instruction on how to have a successful marriage.

His Innocent Wife... The last thing Gaetano Leonetti wants is to be shackled in marriage, but to become CEO of his family's bank, his grandfather has decreed Gaetano must find a nice, ordinary woman to wed. Convinced his grandfather is mad, Gaetano sets about proving him wrong with housekeeper Poppy Arnold. With her outspoken nature and unusual dress sense, she's definitely not wife material! But it's not long before hardworking, self-sacrificing Poppy charms his grandfather and Gaetano's stuck with a union he didn't want and a bride he sinfully craves! Having set her up to fail, can he really take the precious gift of her virginity?