Jenna Evans Welch Books In Order

Publication Order of Love & Gelato Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Jenna Evans Welch
Author Jenna Evans Welch was the sort of insatiable child reader that had no choice but to grow up and become a writer.

When Jenna’s not busy writing girl abroad stories, she can be found making elaborate messes in her kitchen or chasing her kids around.

She writes for young adults because in 1998 she stood in her library’s pitiful YA section, realizing the book she wanted to read that did not exist. It was disappointing, with just a tiny little shelf and many of the books were just about cheerleaders.

She wanted the same fun and adventure she had fallen for in all of her favorite childhood books, just in teen form. Where was that adventure? Jenna had been reading books about magical worlds, spies, and secret gardens, but now that magic was gone and popularity was the main topic. She swore she would put it in there. Jenna turned and stomped to the adult section, never forgetting.

At the age of fifteen, her family moved to Florence, Italy, where Jenna lived for two years. She’d grown up in a bubble in Salt Lake City, so moving to Europe expanded her world in major ways. It was very exciting to her to see more of the world and realize how much she did not yet know. It is a growing awareness that she really likes bringing to books for a teen audience because she believes they’re already in this mindset of being excited about what their lives could be like.

When she got to her twenties, she floundered. She had known for so very long that she wanted to write for teens, however, while 23, after she’d written her first draft of “Love & Gelato”, she was simply devastated. There wasn’t any plot to speak of, and it was incredibly tough to write.

She knew what sort of book she wanted to write, and knew what good books were, yet couldn’t do it yet and couldn’t come with a way to fix it. She attempted for a couple years, before putting it in a closet. Then she was lucky and came into publishing in an atypical way.

Her dad’s a writer that’s been publishing since Jenna was really young. She was working with him on his books for about six to seven years, helping out with editing and research and a scene here and there, and along the way he’d ask where her book was. She kept saying that it was much too painful to revisit, yet without her knowing, he showed this book to his own publisher, who saw some potential in it and made an offer.

Jenna was given one year to rewrite it and she rewrote it three times before having something she loved. This was a high-pressure way of learning how to write a good book, but she just cared so much and wasn’t about to let this chance slip by.

While researching, she actually has to go there. She’s not the type able to conjure a place without being there. You can’t fully capture what it really smells like, feels like, and sounds like. She’ll take a designated assistant (either her best friend or husband) and they will navigate and figure out the details as she is hunched over her notebook and scribbling notes just as fast as she can.

“Love & Gelato” is the first novel in the “Love & Gelato” series and was released in the year 2016. One summer in Italy becomes a road trip across Tuscany.

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, however she’s not in the mood for Italy’s famous fairy tale landscape and sunshine. She is just there since it was her mom’s dying wish that she get to know her dad better. However what sort of dad is not around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is return home.

However Lina’s then handed a journal her mom was keeping while she was living in Italy. All of a sudden, Lina’s uncovering this magical world filled of hidden bakeries, secret romances, and art. It’s a world that inspires Lina, along with Ren, an ever-so-charming guy, to follow in her mom’s footsteps and unearth a secret which has been kept way too long. It is a secret that is going to change everything that Lina thought she knew about her dad, mom, and even herself.

People come to Italy for gelato and love, somebody tells her, however sometimes they find so much more there.

“Spells for Lost Things” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2022. Two teens attempting to find their own place in the world after they were unceremoniously dragged to Salem, Massachusetts, for the entire summer.

Willow’s never felt like she belonged anywhere and has become convinced that the one way to find her real home is to travel around the world. However her plans to act on this dream of hers get put on hold when her often absent and aloof mom drags her to Salem, in order to wrap up the affairs of some aunt Willow never even knew she had. An aunt that possibly was a witch.

While she’s there, she meets a loner named Mason, who has always felt out of place and has gone from one foster home to another his whole life. He has been classified as a runaway, always searching for ways to get back home to his mother; even if she cannot care for him, it is his job to attempt taking care of her. Right?

Willow and Mason, who are naturally pulled to one another, set off across Salem in order to learn the secret past of Willow’s aunt, mom, and the rather ambiguous history of her family. The whole time, the two cannot help but act on the natural connection that they share with each other. However with the amount of baggage existing between the two of them, along with Willow’s building conviction that her family could be cursed, could they truly manage to hang onto each other?