So many of us dream of life in Tuscany. Jennifer Criswell made her dream come true. This is the story of her (mis)adventures in lovely, rustic Montepulciano, not far from Cortona in the heart of Tuscany. Giving up her life as a lawyer in New York City, scrimping and saving, Jennifer makes a bold move thousands of miles from home with her aging beloved dog, Cinder. She encounters the real people of Tuscany and life is not quite as simple as she imagined, first and foremost is the language barrier; second her quest through Italian bureaucracy and her pursuit of residency.

I’d love to know more of how life continued for Jennifer. The story was real and full of hardship and reality, not glitz and glamour as so many of us feel about living in Italy as an expat.

I haven't been to Italy but I would really love to go there sometime in the future. This book got my halfway, and the author is really good in making me picture the environment and the italian culture as well.

I like that the book is so close to reality.

The cover alone will pull you into this book about Tuscany, You know a book set in Tuscany will leave you with a warm feeling. And of course, you'll learn that you can survive when you are close to being out of money as long as you have a dog and can bake brownies.

Enjoyable and very realistic look about moving from the US to live in Tuscany. Criswell shows the good and the bad. Descriptions of the country and its people are wonderful.

This memoir is told with a great sense of humour and personal insight. I really enjoyed it.
Jennifer is a lawyer in New York City, but doesn't enjoy her job, and started planning ten years earlier to move to Tuscany permanently. Her grandmother was Italian, and that offers her a foot in the door. Saving money where she could for the last few years, and researching all the paperwork required to actually live her dream has been a long haul.
The book begins with a prologue a few months into her move to Italy, at pretty much the lowest point of her story, but the real story begins in the spring as she moves into a rented apartment with an amazing view of the countryside. She moved to Montepulciano with her weimaraner Cinder in tow. She has taken language lessons, but hasn't really immersed herself in the language seriously, and as she looks for work and waits on the final paperwork to allow her to gain Italian citizenship, she finds many barriers between her and her final goal. She just keeps reminding herself that at least she's in Tuscany.
Finding work isn't easy, partly due to paperwork issues, and partly due to her language skills. She realizes that she must take more Italian lessons and work hard at them to make herself more employable. She finds out the different cultural habits of her new neighbours, struggles to make her money go further as time goes on, and finds that her love life is everybody's business and a topic of small town conversation.
From food to friends, wine to working, we see how she meets each challenge and defies it, persevering to her end goal. A great read and insight into such a unique experience.