Oh how I loved the setting of this story!
Quite a bit different but I still enjoyed "traveling' outside my home to a very different place.
The characters were wonderful and I loved the plot.
I couldn't put the book down until I finished and honestly it was the cover of this book that drew me to it. I wasn't disappointed at all.
I really love a good read and this novel is one that will stick with me for quite awhile.
Poor Juila! How embarrassing that must of been!
Oftentimes our lives go through many changes whether we want it to or not and I love how Julia adjusted to them.
I'm not fond of changes but it is a part of them but that's a part of God's plan for us. He know us best and Father knows best.
I really liked this author and I'll be looking forward to more from her!
5 stars for some excellent writing! I highly recommend!
My thanks for a copy of this book. I was NOT required to write a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own.

As someone who personally has not been able to travel much, I really liked the setting in this book. I have to admit I became really invested in Julia's story especially after being left at the altar and alone to travel to places meant to be traveled by two. But, as Julia shows you can be on your own, you can find your strength, you can find your happy. She discovers Olive Haven Women's Retreat for Widowed Travelers, along a seaside village (this sounds beautiful btw). Read this book to find out how Julia prevails and comes to terms with her past and how she plans to move forward. Amazing for a debut novel.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I will be sharing my review on Goodreads, Instagram, and Amazon.

Thank you to NetGalley and Olive Street Publishing for an advance copy of this ebook in exchange for my honest review.

Kate Laack’s debut novel hit it out of the park, I usually prefer thrillers and fast-paced mysteries but I am always down to read a book with Italy as a setting. The author captured the essence of Cinque Terre perfectly and I felt like I was right there with Julia.

The characters are complex and well developed, they invoke strong emotions and really make you root for their happiness.

This is a beautiful book about resilience, overcoming grief and finding yourself once faced with a new reality.

I highly recommend this book!

Although I've never been to Cinque Terre, we've been to Florence and other parts of Italy and the setting of this book really `brought me back. It was one of the reasons I requested the story.
I was very pleasantly surprised with the book. It was a very heart-warming, healing story. It made me want to travel alone (without having to go through the heartache that led Julia to do that) and meet a group of women like those at Olive Haven. At times, though, I felt like there was a little too much description and found myself skipping through some paragraphs. Overall I really enjoyed it though!

The setting of this book is what first caught my attention and made me request this ARC. What I found was a book full of heart about a woman's journey of self discovery and found family after heartbreak. This book explores notions of grief, infidelity, relationships and renewal.

In the Shade of Olive Trees is about Julia, a woman left at the altar by her fiance, Will. She makes the decision to go on her honeymoon in Italy anyways. The story follows her as she reckons with the end of her committed relationship, as she travels around Italy and finds new loved ones, both romantically and platonically.

Two women,both on important life journeys. Heartache, infidelity, and death all play a part in this novel. Friendships are made when least experienced. This isn't my usual genre of choice, but I did enjoy it.

Julia is left at the alter, and despite being a planner, she decides to go on her honeymoon to Italy by herself. With a detailed itinerary, she starts her trip. Along the way, she meets a number of women who open her eyes to love, loss, friendship, and how to continue living when life seems hopeless.

With a gorgeous setting, and lovely, detailed descriptions of the Italian countryside, I really enjoyed this book. Thank you Netgalley and Olive Street Publishing for the ARC!

4/5 🌟

This was such a surprise!

I originally requested this book on NetGalley because of its setting in Cinque Terre, Italy since I just love that area and was really pleasantly surprised by its quality.

In the Shade of Olive Trees is about Julia Brooks' journey after her then-fiancé decides to wait until she is walking down the aisle to call the wedding off because he'd been having an affair. It is a deep dive into the crisis after a huge breakup when you have to figure out your identity once again after being tied to someone for so long. This book is also in large part about friendship and being open to the unexpected.

I really liked this book and the relationships Julia builds with the women she meets in Italy, especially Alex and Harriet, as the trip takes an unexpected turn. It reminded me of the power of friendships and that there are still good people out there. It also reminded me to be more open to new experiences in my own life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Olive Street Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review 💕

I read this in a day. It was such a great story. I really enjoyed it. The characters were all relatable and you really felt for the jilted bride and why she did what she did. if anyone is looking for a feel good story to totally engross them. I recommend this book.

The morning after Julia Books is left at the altar by her fiancé, she decides to do the most uncharacteristic thing imaginable—she goes on her honeymoon anyway. With a detailed itinerary, she flies to Italy, determined to make the most of the trip she’d always dreamed about. But she quickly learns that nothing about her trip is what she expected. By chance, Julia meets two women on her journey who lead her to the Olive Haven Women’s Retreat for Widowed Travelers in the seaside town of Porto Venere. Though she feels that she doesn’t belong at first, she comes to find that the women she meets teach her everything important about resilience, grief, joy, adventure, and ditching expectations and itineraries to figure it out as you go.

This is a heartwarming story about heartbreak, the people who lift us up, and the ways that endings can be new beginnings. Author Kate Laack doesn’t simplify or romanticize grief—this is a slow-paced novel that takes its time, which feels authentic to the subject matter. The characters are unique and sprinkle the novel with enough humor to give the book the right amount of levity. Laack describes Porto Venere and Cinque Terre so vividly. Having recently visited Porto Venere, I was so impressed by her attention to detail and her ability to bring me right back to that landscape. Her depictions of the food, culture, and nature of the Ligurian region will make anyone desperate for a journey to the Italian Riviera.

This was a bit of a slow read for me simply because of the pacing, but I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it to anyone who has experience heartbreak and is looking for encouragement, inspiration, or reassurance. The surprise reveal near the end of the novel from one of the secondary characters who makes a confession about her grief to Julia was an especially poignant lesson that I’ll remember for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Olive Street Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Many thanks to Olive Street Publisher, NetGalley, and Kate Laack for the ARC!

This is a story of second chances, Julia is left at the alter by her fiancee stunned and lacking direction. She impulsively decides to go on their Itialian honeymoon by herself, but is she running away ? What went wrong? Will she face the hard questions? Will she learn to trust again? This book resonates on so many levels and I highly recommend reading it!

What a pleasant little surprise in this debut novel! I loved the premise of Julia's solo trip to Italy in the wake of her cancelled wedding. It just felt like the right thing for her to do, even given her reservations about it. I loved the relationships she formed early on in the trip, and where those relationships ultimately took her. Overall I enjoyed Julia's character, although I would have liked to have seen a little more strength and anger in her, instead of having her play the victim role. The writer did an amazing job painting a gorgeously vivid picture of Italy and some of its lesser known areas (to me). And finally, I loved the subtle lessons that were woven into the entire story, lessons of forgiveness and strength, and the power of friendship. Highly recommend!!

This was a really healing book to read - anyone who is going through heartbreak of any kind should read this. Even though I'm not necessarily going through heartbreak at this second, I'm sure there's lingering effects of some kind of hurt in my soul, and I took so many lessons from this novel regardless.

Synopsis: Julia is heartbroken after being left at the altar by her (ex-fiancé) Will. She makes a rash decision and decides to take the honeymoon trip to Italy that she had meticulously planned for the two of them. Julia is a planner, and she had every part of the trip mapped out to the minute. On the plane, she is seated next to a woman named Harriett, who at first might seem like the annoying person that's chatting when you have your headphones in, but the two end up opening up and sharing about their lives - Harriett, a widow, ends up passing off her business card as she runs a retreat in Italy for widowed women. As soon as Julia arrives in Florence, she (1) questions why she made such a rash decision, and (2) realizes that everything that could go wrong is going wrong. The second part of her trip involves going to La Spezia, where she sits on the train with a woman named Alex (who literally saves her after Julia passes out from dehydration and exhaustion). They go their separate ways once arriving, but not before Alex offers her phone number and says Julia is welcome to join her on a retreat she's going on. Things don't work out for Julia in La Spezia, and ultimately, she calls Alex - and that's where Julia realizes that Alex is on the widower retreat that Harriett runs. From there, Julia meets several like-minded women who have all experienced some kind of loss or heartbreak, and through deep conversations, adventures, pasta, and wine, she finds the tools needed to go home and make the steps to find her way out of this depression.

As I said, if you're going through heartbreak, there are some really poignant tools you can take from this book. The conversations between the women are inspiring, and it's great to see how women can band together and be a support for each other during dark times. I loved the full circle moment at the end where you see the women have kept in touch and are there for each other at a really pivotal moment in Julia's life. Sure, there are frustrating parts where Julia seems to be making progress, and then she reverts back and looks at Will's social media - but isn't that what we all do in breakups? Don't our girlfriends ask to chat through a breakup, you think what you're saying is being heard, and then you find out she messaged the ex or something? That happens all the time! This book is so realistic and it was such a heartwarming, bittersweet novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Olive Street Publishing for an arc of this book in exchange of an honest review.

This book was really sweet. Full of heartache & friendships to get you through it. I found myself wishing this retreat were real- even though I'd (thankfully) be like Julie & feeling like I didn't fit in.

I found it to be a smidge slow moving at times... but fitting for a book about healing & moving on. I'm just impatient.
Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and net galley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This book was a beautiful and moving story of finding yourself after heartbreak. Julie who lives her live according to schedules and premade plans, goes on her honeymoon solo after her fiancée leaves her at the alter. While nothing seemed to go to her plans, the outcome gave Julie beautiful memories, beautiful new friendships, and new hope. I really enjoyed this read and thought it was beautifully written.

After being left at the altar Julia decides to take the honeymoon anyway after all it’s been a lifelong dream to holiday in Italy. In between crying and justified depression do you find a moment of happiness and even makes a few friends. But after deciding to leave her main hotel to travel to another city do to the train strikes and a language barrier she almost misses her train and then finds out she canceled her stay at the hotel this is when she calls who she believes is the only person she knows in the area Alex a fellow American she met on the train but when she arrives she is surprised to see the kind lady she met on the plane to Italy. She runs a resort for widows trying to MoveOn after such a devastating loss and although Julia feels like hers is nothing compared to theirs it will be through seeing their Grief and overcoming their grief that shows Julia the first glimpse of happiness since will abandon her at the altar. First of all let me just say if you could get through the first sad half of the book it is so worth it once it got passed the pivotal point it was so good and so worth pushing through. I do wish she would’ve named it something else because in the shade of olive trees does not scream love and romance but either way the book is worth reading and there is so much about this book I love and even during the sad part they had some really fun it’s not funny moments in the book like when she dance with Lucas but OMG you’ll have to read it to find out I really enjoyed this book and I’m so glad I read it. If you love books about bouncing back and finding the real meaning of life and love you a love In The Shade of Olive Trees, I certainly did. I received this book from NetGalley and Olive Street publishing but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thank you so much for this ARC.

This book is an absolute treasure and a totally unexpected read for me. There were so many lessons learned with a beautiful Italian backdrop - unlikely friendships, spontaneity, forgiveness of self and others and the importance of LIVING.

I wish this book never ended and I could keep vacationing in Porto Venere with all of these ladies forever.

I will always remember this book and can see myself revisiting it in the future.

This book was definitely a love letter to Italy and a love letter to overcoming heartbreak. It was a bit slow in parts and a lot of description. Thanks NetGalley for a ARC in exchange for a review.

Und hierum geht es auf deutsch: Julia Brooks Leben scheint ein Trümmerhaufen zu sein: sie ist auf dem Weg zum Altar von ihrem Verlobten Will sitzen gelassen worden, und so wird der geplante schönste Tag des Lebens eine Katastrophe. Julia entscheidet sich spontan, die lange erwartete Hochzeitsreise nach Florenz und in die Cinque Terre alleine anzutreten, und so sitzt sie am kommenden Tag emotional völlig fertig im Flieger nach Italien. Natürlich ist eine Hochzeitsreise alleine ohne den geplanten frisch angetrauten Gatten nicht wirklich romantisch, und die ersten Tage der Soloreise entpuppen sich für Julia eher stressig und voller unerwarteter Komplikationen.

Doch Julia macht einige neue Bekanntschaften: Harriet, die ein Retreat in Porto Venere leitet, Alex, die sich um sie kümmert, als sie zusammenbricht, und so ändert Julia ihre Reisepläne und zieht in Harriets idyllische Villa ein, in „Olive Haven“, einem Retreat für verwitwete weibliche Reisende. In diesem unwahrscheinlichem Ambiente erfährt Julia so einiges über die Liebe, das Leben, Verluste und wie man damit fertig wird.

Ja, das ist mal eine etwas andere Geschichte, und ich war gespannt. Die Ausgangssituation ist natürlich ein Knaller: die Braut, die in der vollen Kirche sitzen gelassen wird, und die dann alleine ihren Honeymoon antritt. Fand ich interessant, vor allem weil ich das Ziel der Reise, die ligurischen Cinque Terre, kenne und liebe. Ich verrate es gleich: die Autorin sieht es anscheinend genauso, hier kommt Italiensehnsucht rüber, und wer noch nie in den 5 Dörfern wandern war, hat garantiert nach Lektüre des Buchs Lust darauf. Und natürlich kommt bei Julias Reise die italienische Küche auch nicht zu kurz ;-)
Aber abgesehen davon, hier haben wir einen wunderbaren gefühlvollen Roman der anderen Art. Hier geht es nicht um das Finden der Liebe, sondern wie man deren Verlust überwindet. In den Gesprächen, die Julia mit Alex, Harriet und den den anderen Witwen führt, kommt viel Lebensweisheit vor. Und einiges davon denke ich kann jeder mitnehmen. Sehr viel Herzenswärme und Liebe zum Leben wurden hier literarisch verarbeitet.

Natürlich ist Julia die Hauptperson, und wir begleiten sie, wie sie die ersten Wochen ihres Liebeskummers erträgt. Es gibt wunderbar viel Identifikationspotential: wer hat noch nicht bei einer Trennung den Ex auf social media gestalkt und schnell festgestellt, dass das mental nicht wirklich gut tut?

Ich fasse zusammen; mich hat die Geschichte sehr berührt, sie war wunderbar mitreißend geschrieben, hatte trotz des ernsten Themas eine gewisse Leichtigkeit, man konnte das Buch flüssig weglesen, und auch der Humor kam nicht zu kurz. Ja doch, die Ladies im Retreat hatten genug zu Lachen, und das hat mir gut gefallen. Ernstes Thema, locker-leicht verarbeitet, tiefgründig, aber doch leicht lesbar – so soll es sein. Und im Hintergrund war immer die positive Message: das Leben ist schön und will gelebt werden. Und man muss verzeihen können, um sich selbst zu heilen.

Ich verteile hier volle Punktzahl und bedanke mich bei Netgalley und dem Verlag für das Rezensionsexemplar! Ich hoffe, es wird schnell auch auf deutsch übersetzt, ich glaube, es wird auch hierzulande viele Fans finden :-)

This book felt like....Under the Tuscan Sun...light.

I read this book on the way back from a week in Portugal with my family. On the way over, my mom watched "Under the Tuscan Sun", one of her favorite movies, and I made fun of her, because she watched it without headphones--she knows it that well.

This book felt so similar.

Hurt woman, takes a trip, the people in the town tell her their stories of lost love and woe, woman learns that she must first love herself..... etc etc etc. then...unexpected (totally expected) ending.

Don't worry - I've already ordered a copy for my mom.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.