#BooksMakeGreatGifts – Consider my novels and short story collection for the readers in your life

Last week I shared with you lots of great advice for book shopping, with reviews for all my Womens Fiction Writers Association (WFWA) authors’ novels I read in 2023. Any (or all) of these novels would be well appreciated by any bookworm on your list.

You can see my blog post with book reviews here .

But since #BooksMakeGreatGifts, you may still be in need of suggestions. My novels and short story collection may be the right fit for your shopping needs.

Rome’s Last Noble Palace is my newest release. If you enjoy dual timeline contemporary/historical fiction alongside a ghostly tale, this might be for you.

Two women. Two different centuries. One attic room

Isabelle has been shipped off from America to Rome to live with her aunt, Princess Brancaccio, and be married off to a European nobleman. But Rome in 1896 is on the cusp of a new century and Isabelle longs for more than a titled husband. Over a century later, Sophie can’t believe her good fortune interning in a Roman museum, complete with an attic apartment in the spectacular Palazzo Brancaccio. The idyll is shattered by a disturbing nighttime presence in the deserted hallways of the grand palace – one no one else can sense.

Drink Wine and Be Beautiful is my Italy-themed short story collection.

Italian Tales of love, betrayal, longing, desire – and hope

Italy serves as the backdrop for stories of Italian women and expatriate women living in Italy. The twenty-one stories in this collection follow women’s lives as they confront betrayal and love, alienation and community, despair and–ultimately–hope.

If it’s an escape to the mountains you’re after, you may enjoy my story-within-a-story dual timeline novel, In The Shadow of The Apennines.

An American divorcée. An Italian shepherdess.
Separated by a century, united by common dreams

Shunned and increasingly isolated in her new mountain home in Abruzzo, Italy, Samantha seeks solace in the letters and diaries she discovers in her attic, written by a past tenant in her home – a survivor of the devastating 1915 Pescina earthquake.

And if you’re looking for an escape of a different type, why not time travel back to 1813 in my time slip/ historical romance Dark Blue Waves?

When you wake up in Bath, England two hundred years in the past, how far can a love of Jane Austen get you? 

For a student of nineteenth-century English literature, time travel should be a dream come true. Suffering an accident while on a Jane Austen seminar in Bath, Janet regains consciousness in her own room—back in Regency England. While desperately attempting to make sense of her dilemma, Janet treads a thin line between trying to blend into her new world and not being unmasked as the imposter she is. Can she discover the way to return to her twenty-first century life? After working so hard to create a rewarding nineteenth-century life for herself and opening her heart to friendship and love, does she even want to?

If you’re simply in the mood for a feel-good escape exploring unlikely freindships that can turn your life around, all set in sunny Rome and accompanied by plenty of cappuccino, pasta & wine, you may enjoy Three Coins 

One Eternal City. Three women. Three wishes. Three coins. 

American expatriates Emma, Tiffany and Annarita all meet up by chance at a 1950s movie night while on a restorative holiday at an Italian beach resort off-season. The triumphs and hardships of these three very different women become intertwined as they form an unlikely friendship and work to better their messy lives and to open their hearts to love.

Hope I gave you some Italian-themed book ideas for your holiday shopping!