That Month in Tuscany

Lizzy Harper, a married woman from Roanoke, Virginia, sits on her packed suitcase holding two plane tickets to Florence, Italy. One bears her name; the other belongs to her husband, Ty, a partner at the law firm Finley, Harkington and Crass, who has backed out of their twentieth anniversary trip the night before departure. Lizzy recognizes a pattern: Ty has canceled trip after trip, always expecting her to comply. This time, she ignores his calls and drives to the airport alone, encouraged by her best friend, Winn Everson. Meanwhile, Ty sits in his office, resentful of Lizzy's defiance. When an attractive junior associate enters, he contemplates pursuing her, hinting at a history of affairs.

On the first-class flight to Rome, Lizzy overindulges in champagne, gets sick, and stumbles onto the lap of a man across the aisle. He is amused and kind. After landing, she sees young women swarming him for autographs and realizes he is Ren Sawyer, the lead singer of the rock band Temporal, whose music her college-age daughter, Kylie, adored in high school. Ren rides to his hotel reflecting on how empty his life feels. His girlfriend, supermodel Gretchen Macher, calls wanting to join him, but he insists on being alone. He is haunted by a panic attack at his last concert in Charlotte, North Carolina. In his hotel room, he stares at sixty sleeping pills he deliberately saved and contemplates taking them all, but he recalls a promise he and his brother Colby made: no rock-and-roll clichés, no dying in hotel rooms. He forces himself to put the bottle away.

In Florence, Lizzy spends three days wandering freely, falling in love with the city. She reads dismissive emails from Ty and a guilt-inducing message from Kylie, who sides with her father. Lizzy reflects on the erosion of her identity within the marriage. Years earlier, Kylie found Lizzy's teenage diary and learned her parents married because of an unplanned pregnancy. Kylie never forgave Lizzy, growing closer to Ty. Over time, Ty also diminished Lizzy's passion for photography, calling it a hobby until she stopped shooting altogether.

Back in Rome, fans mob Ren after his manager, Stuart Langston, leaks his location. Furious, Ren takes a train to Florence on impulse. At the Hotel Savoy, he spots Lizzy and asks her to visit the Accademia Gallery. She retrieves her camera, photographs everything she sees, and feels a forgotten part of herself click back into place. They stand before Michelangelo's David in awed silence.

That evening, Winn calls with devastating news: She found the car of Serena Billings, a young associate at Ty's firm, in Lizzy's driveway at five in the morning and confronted Ty at the door. Lizzy is devastated but not entirely surprised; she and Ty have not been intimate in over a year. She cries for hours. Ren, hearing her through the wall, refuses to leave and holds her while she falls asleep.

The next morning, a fax from Ty announces he is arriving in Florence. Ren, who came downstairs intending to leave Lizzy a farewell note, spots Ty in the lobby and warns her instead. They flee together in a rented Fiat. Over the following days, they explore the Tuscan countryside. At a roadside restaurant, they rescue a terrified stray puppy, which Ren coaxes out from under the car by singing a song he wrote with Colby as a child. They name her Sophia and continue toward San Gimignano, a medieval hill town. That evening, Ren tells Lizzy her husband has made her believe she is not beautiful and assures her she is. They share a passionate kiss, but Ren abruptly pulls back, telling her he is not a good guy.

Ty tracks them by tracing Lizzy's credit card and appears at her hotel door, contrite and forceful. Lizzy pushes him away. Ren emerges from his room next door, and when Ty makes a crude accusation, Ren punches him. A brawl follows before Lizzy and the hotel manager intervene. Lizzy has Ty removed. The next morning, the manager warns that Ty has filed assault charges with the Italian police. Ren's manager arranges a private Tuscan villa where they can stay out of sight.

At the villa, Ren confesses that when he boarded the flight to Italy, he did not intend to return. He wanted to end his life. He reveals the source of his guilt: Colby, Temporal's lead guitarist, was killed in a tour bus crash. Ren was supposed to be on the bus but stayed behind because Colby's fiancée, who was also Ren's ex-girlfriend, asked him to. Colby died sitting in Ren's usual seat. Ren tells Lizzy he believes he caused his brother's death. She insists he could never have intended it, but Ren says he wishes it had been him instead.

Meanwhile, Kylie is abducted. After leaving a bar with a band's lead singer who passes out drunk, she walks back to her dorm alone around three a.m. A man grabs her, shoves her into a car, and drugs her. She wakes handcuffed to a bed alongside another captive named Erin, who tells Kylie their captors plan to sell them. Kylie's roommate, Peyton Kinley, calls Ty to report her missing. With no way to reach Lizzy, Ty posts a public tweet to Ren's account: "@RenSawyer May I please have my wife back? Our daughter is missing."

Stuart alerts Ren just as he and Lizzy are growing closer at the villa. Lizzy is stricken and calls Ty immediately. Ren drives her through the night to the Rome airport, where they share a bittersweet goodbye. Lizzy hands Sophia to Ren and walks inside without looking back.

Still captive, Kylie remembers a documentary her mother once made her watch about a kidnapped girl who befriended her captor to escape. She plays on the less aggressive captor's attraction to gain access to the bathroom. When Erin screams as a planned distraction, the man rushes out. Kylie locks the door, smashes the window, and wriggles through. She drops from the second floor and runs until she finds help. At the police station in Charlottesville, Lizzy and Ty find Kylie wrapped in a blanket, shaken but alive. The captors fled with Erin, who has not been found.

In the aftermath, Kylie withdraws from the University of Virginia for the semester, haunted by nightmares and guilt over Erin. She and Lizzy rebuild their relationship, bonding over photography. Kylie apologizes for years of hostility and admits she always knew Ty was unfaithful. Ren calls Lizzy once; she tells him they cannot be together and deletes his subsequent texts unread. Three months later, Kylie visits Ty's office and finds him kissing another woman. She tells Lizzy, who feels hurt but unsurprised and promises Kylie they will be fine on their own.

Ty and Lizzy divorce. Kylie returns to school, eventually pursuing a master's degree in psychology at Stanford to work with survivors of trauma. Lizzy builds a photography career. Over a year after Italy, Ren appears at Lizzy's gallery show, tipped off by Winn, and buys a photograph from San Gimignano. Kylie meets him for the first time and is charmed. Ren persuades Lizzy to finish their interrupted Italian tour. They spend six months exploring Tuscany with Sophia, Lizzy photographing and Ren writing a memoir about Colby. He has left performing behind, redirecting his career toward developing new talent. On a cloudless June afternoon at the top of the Spanish Steps in Rome, Ren drops to one knee and proposes. Lizzy says yes as church bells toll. In the epilogue, the couple is married and living on the Mediterranean coast. Lizzy tells Ren she may be pregnant and suggests naming the baby Colby, boy or girl. Moved to tears, they affirm their love as the novel closes.