I’m looking for more GOOD books that are set in Southern Europe- think Portugal, South of France, Spain, Italy, Greece.
Mysteries and romance.
Beach reads.
Not historical fiction or WW2 settings.
Not fantasy/magic.
Looking for things set… let’s say 1980s or later, 80s being the flashback furthest point, if there are flashbacks. But our modern world preferred.
Women-leads preferred.
It can definitely be YA, but also retired folks on their next journey!
City, island, countryside, lake, mountains = all good.
Books that I loved that I think fit this category I’d like more recs along the lines of:
The Villa,
Salt Water,
Two Nights in Lisbon,
Love & Gelato series,
One Italian Summer,
Ciao for Now.
+ The Amalfi Curse -while this has magic and one timeline historical fiction, the “today” part was spot on for what I’m looking for
Things like these but in S Euro also along the lines of what I want:
Tana French books
Ruth Ware books
Emily Henry books
Carley Fortune books
Emily St John Mandel books
Christina Lauren books
Louise Penny books
Frieda McFadden
even Dan Brown books
Or things like The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl, Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay and A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey
The main characters do NOT need to be on vacation!!!!!!! They can be, but they can be from and in S Europe too. They can be ex-pats. They can be immigrants. LGBTQIA also great!
Essential to be place-based, where the location is key to the story and couldn’t just be flipped in (ie, most Lucy Foley have no “particular” location – so not those, I do like some of those too, but not the ideal on this wish list).
I read a lot!
But I feel like there’s a bunch of stuff/ writers specific to these areas that I’ve definitely missed. Especially non-American writers and writers who’ve been translated to English??
Especially note- this above list is mostly written by American white women. And that’s cool. But hoping there’ll be lots of recs by non-white and non-American women yall have for me too.
I’m teaching a travel writing class (with a study abroad component in S Europe) that I hope to use these as examples for. So the books have to be great place description. But they don’t have to be big name writers or award winners. Just a good beach read!!
Thanks in advance, my fellow bookish nerds ❤️☀️
by LemonSweaterCat