In the same category as “A Room with a View”–some stuffy English ladies go to Italy on vacation but end up dropping their formality in the lush, blooming gardens and find love.
Here, four ladies of different ages and means (but essentially all strangers) pool their money to rent a Tuscan villa for a month. Nearly nothing is coordinated ahead of time which leads to lengthy conflict over personal spaces and shared costs. Two of the women are particularly thorny: Lady Caroline just wants to be left alone and treated normally and Mrs Fisher just wants it to be the Victorian era again. Lotty holds things together with her enthusiasm while she and Rose worry about their unhappy marriages. The arrival of men, after much foreboding, shakes up the entire situation.
This is a lighthearted, happy-ending story with low stakes drama. The writing is old fashioned in a good way as the book takes its time and doesn’t try to force anything. Not the greatest thing ever written, but a nice spring read while everything was blooming.
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