This Time It’s for Real

A witty, heartwarming romantic comedy about starting over, discovering strength in solitude, and finding family in unexpected places.

In a tiny Italian village, Lucilla dreams of a romantic new beginning with her boyfriend Enrico—until she discovers he has other plans. Alone in a crumbling inn at twelve hundred meters, with no phone signal and only a bottle of disinfectant for company, she fears her dream life is over before it begins. But the mountains have other ideas. What starts as a surreal welcome becomes a lifeline. Despite her heartbreak, she’s drawn into village life, full of eccentrics: an innkeeper quoting Dante, a baker obsessed with focaccia, a widow determined to marry her off, and a handyman who always appears when disaster strikes. Running the tavern is chaos—burst pipes, complaining tourists, sudden storms. Yet Lucilla, long used to leaning on others, slowly proves she can stand on her own. Against her better judgment, she begins to suspect the mountains didn’t just give her a tavern, but a second chance at love. With its Alpine setting and lovable oddballs, a heroine whose vulnerability makes her hilarious and relatable shows how being left behind can set us free—and how finding your place in the world isn’t something we wait for, but something we create.

Rights sold:

Kuwait (Dar Shafaq Publishing)