The Enchanted April - Tapa blanda

The lure of Italy is hard to resist. For four British women, the attraction brings them to San Salvatore, a Tuscan villa, for an entire month of vacation. The women are very different. Lotty Wilkins, nervous and talkative, is treated like a child by her husband and is starting to chafe from his oppression. Rose Arbuthnot, with a "face like a disappointed madonna," is pious, sweet, and desperately unhappy. Margaret Fisher, stern and demanding, lives in a past peppered with famous literary encounters. And Caroline Dester, striking beautiful and popular, is lonely and bored with her whirlwind social life. The four rent San Salvatore together, and immediately begin to change. What is it that changes these women? Sun and rest in a beautiful place? Yes, partly, but mostly it is the friendship of three extraordinary people.

British female writer and a known literary figure in Europe, Elizabeth is renowned for her witticism. She is best remembered for her novels which humorously depict different marital problems. Though born in Australia, Elizabeth was brought up in England. She met and married Count Henning August von Arnim, a Prussian aristocrat, in 1889. After his death in 1910, she married John Francis Stanley Russell in 1916; the marriage lasted only 3 years. Elizabeth spent her life in Germany, America, England, Switzerland, and on the French Riviera. Her first novel, Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898), was published anonymously. It was a huge success and was republished 21 times during the very first year of its appearance. It was followed by 20 other novels which include The Solitary Summer (1899), The Caravaners (1909), Vera (1921), and The Enchanted April (1922). She also penned her autobiography titled All the Dogs of My Life which was published in 1936.