Angela Petch Books In Order

Publication Order of Tuscany Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Angela Petch is a bestselling and award winning novelist of historical fiction and an occasional poet. She usually spends most of her summers in Tuscany where together with her Italian husband she owns a renovated water mill.

When she is not exploring the wild and unspoiled corners of the Apennine mountains, she can usually be found in a converted stable, where she has installed her writing desk.

In her hiking rucksack or Italian handbag, she will always be found with a pen and store notebook and constantly jots down any ideas she gets. Angela usually spends the other half of her year in Sussex, her native home in the UK, where she still has her family.

When she is not interacting with her grandchildren, she can often be found catching up with her British author friends.

She made her debut when she penned “The Tuscan Secret,” the debut novel of the very popular “Tuscany” series of novels. In addition to the series, she has also published a freestanding novel and a collection of short stories.

Petch’s love affair with Italy started when she was seven year old and together with her parents moved to the Italian capital, where she would spend half a dozen years. As a child, it was easy to take in new cultures and language and this is how she fell in love with Italy.

She studied at the St George’s international school in the city center even though they lived in the suburbs. They quickly picked up Italian shopping at local markets and playing with Italian children.

In her garden were ancient Roman statues among the peach groves and vineyards that were very different and regal as compared to the Edwardian ones in the London home.

Her father also played a huge part in getting Petch to fall in love with the country. Every Sunday she would get out his guidebook and take them to historical places such as Ostia Antica, Hadrian’s Villa, Saint Benedict’s Monastery and Tivoli Gardens among others.

She would later on get married to an Italian and her love story with Italy would be complete.

Whether she is in Sussex or in Tuscany, Angela Petch usually writes in the afternoon after completing her task in the mornings.

While in Sussex, she usually writes in the study she shares with her husband. In Tuscany she usually writes from an old converted stable. She has also asserted that when she needs to write in silence she can do it from outside.

When Petch is not writing her novels she can usually be found playing tennis which is something she does at least twice every week. Angela also enjoys walking as she finds it a good antidote to being hunched over her laptop for hours on end.

Another of her passions is cooking and sewing even though she has never been properly trained. She finds sewing particularly relaxing and can often be found purchasing materials to sate her appetite for her mediocre sewing techniques.

“The Tuscan Secret” by Angela Petch is set at a time when WWII is shattering Europe. Caught up in the chaos of the Italian Resistance is a young girl named Ines. Together with her best friend and brother, they will sacrifice everything to push back the Nazis invading their homeland.

Ines works deep in the mountains of Tuscany tending to injured resistance fighters that includes an escaped British POW who captures her heart.

Nearly half a century later, a nursing home announces the passing away of an elderly lady who had been dreaming of Italy in her last hours.

To Anna, her youngest daughter, she has left behind a very old box filled with yellowing letters and books that may offer the truth of what happened during the Italian Resistance of WWII.

She had been forbidden from learning Italian by her English father and since she cannot translate the diaries left to her by her mother, Anna decided to head to Tuscany.

Exploring the stunning mountains and sun kissed olive groves of Italy, she stumbles upon a shocking secret. It is a secret that may upend everything she knew about her mother.

Angela Petch’s novel “Now and Then in Tuscany” is a beautifully researched and written family saga spanning three generations. Giuseppe is a villager from a poor town in Tuscany, where daily life is for the most part controlled by the Catholic church and an annual winter pilgrimage to better grazing lands.

An old priest destroys any chance he had of studying at a seminary and hence when he turns 14, he joins the men going for the annual herding and thus begins on a journey to becoming a laborer.

As a 19 year old, he falls in love with a village tramp and they get married after she falls pregnant only for her to die in childbirth. Without the means to properly care for a child, he is forced to head back home.

Marisa, his old friend, takes him in together with his son even though she is 10 years his senior and crip0pled to boot. Giuseppe and Marisa spend the next half century learning to raise their son and loving each other.

Later on, the author tells the story of the scion of the Giuseppe family that is Francesco Giuseppe the grandson to the lead protagonist. His story has significant similarities to that of his ancestors with passion, secrets and hardship.

“The Tuscan Girl” by Angela Petch is the story of Alaba, a twenty six year old whose fiance dies in a tragic accident. Heavily ridden with guilt and grief, she flees to Rofelle, her childhood hometown in the remote reaches of Tuscany.

While she is out hiking, she stumbles upon an old wooden box full of silverware in a ruined house that was abandoned during WWII. She believes that finding the owner might make up for her wrongs and heal her heartache.

Searching for answers, he meets an elderly man named Massimo, whose only desire is to spend his last years nursing his painful memories and pruning his fruit trees. When Alba brings up the war, he turns pale but she feels that they have some shared grief.

Slowly but surely, they develop a friendship and Massimo starts speaking of wild young girl named Lucia that fell for an enemy soldier whose actions against the nazi’s changes his life and the course of the war.

One Response to “Angela Petch”

1. Joyce Kantor: 2 years ago

   I have had a love affair with your books about Tuscany. I have always wanted to go to Italy since I was a child being proud of my 100% Italian decent.
   As I got older I realised my dream of seeing Italy was not to be. Twelve years ago I lost my husband of almost 50 years. Travel without him did not really appeal to me any more.
   So lately I came across your books and one by one I have enjoyed them immensely. They have not always been read in order. I think now when I finish the last I am reading, I will re-read them in order and enjoy them all over again…perhaps more. Thank you.

   Reply