Living between two such different places–Italy and California–gives me a layered view of romance. Italy is all sunlight and touch and sensory indulgence: candlelit dinners, whispered secrets over gelato, spontaneous dances in the square when the accordion man plays your song. My home in California is quieter but just and deep: barefoot conversations on the beach at dusk, meandering hand-in-hand strolls, and the soft joy  of building a life in small, steady ways. 

When I’m in Italy, my writing tends to be lush and lyrical, my characters a bit reckless and wildly charming. When I’m in California, I lean into the emotional marrow of love–the stories of healing, or rediscovering yourself through the mirror of another person. 

Both places are parts of me. Both speak to different seasons of love. 

People sometimes ask if I base my characters on real people, and the answer is–yes and no. Every character I write has a little bit of me, a little bit of someone I’ve known, and a whole lot of imagination. I don’t write memoir, but I do write memory. The feeling of someone running to meet you in the rain. The ache of saying goodbye at the airport. The delight of realizing someone remembered your favorite pastry. 

Those are the details that matter. 

Sometimes I’ll sit in a cafe–whether it’s one with chipped cups and olive oil cakes in Perugia or one with lavender lattes and laptop writers in Sausalito–and I’ll eavesdrop shamelessly. Not on the words themselves, but the rhythm of them.  The music of real-life conversation. The comings and goings of people. I imagine what the people are really like beneath the image I see. That’s where I find the best moments–the ones that make their way into my books. 

As a writer, I don’t believe in perfect love. I believe in imperfect people choosing love, again and again. That’s what keeps me writing: the belief that no matter what we’ve been through, there’s still a chance to be seen, to be known, and to be loved anyway. 

So I write toward that hope. Sometimes the pages are easy. Sometimes I wrestle every sentence like it’s a dragon. But I always return. Because I know someone, somewhere is waiting to fall in love with the story I’m telling. 

And maybe, just maybe, they’ll leave a note in a bookshop someday too.