Women in Sunlight

“Of the great experiences of my life there are many, but nothing exceeds the plain happiness of a fall night at home....”.  From the very first pages that I turned I knew that I would love this book.

My sister Linda recommended it to me after she listened to the audiobook version. It is about three women...one an artist (me), one a chef (Linda) and one a gardener (Diane) who travel to stay at a villa in Tuscany. And it is written by the author of Under a Tuscan Sun, another of my favorites. Here is a brief summary...

If you met these characters at a dinner party, you would find them charming, if oblivious to their pampered existence. There is never, ever a moment’s hesitation over money. They furnish their rental villa with linens, fruit trees, antique garden tools and anything else they desire. One woman spends 1,000 euros on art and poetry books.

Author Frances Mayes (Will Garin-Banner Media Group)

And although these three women are expats, there is not a moment of that unifying frustration that all real expats endure: the broken dryer, the dishonest merchant or the terror of getting lost in a place where you do not speak the language. Somehow, Camille, Susan and Julia sail through as if they’ve never once had a hair-coloring disaster or eaten bad street food. Granted, the women are victims of a burglary, but their burglars leave them with a litter of adorable kittens.

Such are the trials in “Women in Sunlight.” Everything is delicious, colorful and charming. All the lanes are lined with cypress trees, all the women are fashionable, and everyone is always stopping for a quick espresso at a cute cafe. When Julia decides to jump off a high cliff, she lands safely in the water. When Susan learns Italian, she is fluent in no time. When Camille returns to her love of art, she is heralded as a new star. 

Later, one of them exclaims, “Home. We are at home! We didn’t know we could, would accomplish that.”