Dennise Kowalczyk interviews author, Frances Mayes, about her life in Italy and her new novel, Women in Sunlight. Frances Mayes is best known for her poetry and her book, Under the Tuscan Sun, that she wrote two decades ago. She now splits her time between North Carolina and Tuscany. They spoke over Skype shortly after Frances' return to Cortona about her testament to friendship and the celebration of pursuing your dreams in her newest offering, Women in Sunlight. The story about four women and their quest in reclaiming their lives through an adventure of living in Italy.
She watches from her terrazza as the three American women carry their luggage into the stone villa down the hill. Who are they, and what brings them to this Tuscan village so far from home? An expat herself and with her own unfinished story, she can’t help but question: will they find what they came for?
Kit Raine, an American writer living in Tuscany, is working on a biography of her close friend, a complex woman who continues to cast a shadow on Kit’s own life. Her work is waylaid by the arrival of three women—Julia, Camille, and Susan—all of whom have launched a recent and spontaneous friendship that will uproot them completely and redirect their lives. Susan, the most adventurous of the three, has enticed them to subvert expectations of staid retirement by taking a lease on a big, beautiful house in Tuscany. Though novices in a foreign culture, their renewed sense of adventure imbues each of them with a bright sense of bravery, a gusto for life, and a fierce determination to thrive. But how? With Kit’s friendship and guidance, the three friends launch themselves into Italian life, pursuing passions long-forgotten—and with drastic and unforeseeable results.
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