A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance

An American chef encounters a man in Venice who becomes the love of her life. Fernando first sees Marlena across the Piazza San Marco and falls in love immediately. When they meet again a year later in a Venice café, he believes it is fate. He speaks little English, while Marlena, a divorced American chef traveling through Italy, speaks only basic Italian centered around food. Marlena had believed herself finished with romantic love and incapable of intimacy. Within months of their first meeting, she leaves her job, sells her house in St. Louis, says goodbye to her two grown sons, and moves to Venice to marry Fernando, whom she calls "the stranger." This memoir combines the foods and flavors of Italy with culinary observations and recipes. At its core is a true account of a woman who falls in love with both a man and a city, ultimately discovering a home she did not know she was seeking.