Today I'm talking to the author Francis Mays. When Francis published her novel under the Tuscan

Sun in 1996, it became an instant, instant success and bestseller.

That book and the subsequent movie that was made out of it

has empowered women for a generation now.

And I've got to say, in many Francis became one of the very first offline divorce influencers.

I cannot tell you how many of my friends who have been going through a divorce referenced under the Tuscan Sun as one of the books they read to help them get through it.

If you haven't read it, and reread it recently when I was working on

the Sicilian inheritance and I just wanted to dive into a pool of other books set in Italy and

let me tell you it holds up it is so good and so does the movie

Diane Lane is so freaking hot if you haven't read it

under the Tuscan Sun focuses on a woman reinventing herself in her entire life as she

renovates a dilapidated villa in Tuscany. It's become such a cultural touch point that people reference it to me all the time as they're under the Tuscan Sun moment

Whenever they're going through a process of reinvention

Francis is back going through a process of reinvention.

Francis is back with a brand new novel called A Great Marriage. And I gotta tell you, I just finished it,

and it is a doozy.

It raises incredibly provocative questions

about the possibilities of a superb marriage,

of who gets to have one,

and how does great romance actually pave the way for a lifelong union?

Francis knows a thing or two about marriage.

She's had two of her own.

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