What an interesting read! I really appreciated the author's ability to make a non-fiction memoir feel more like fiction - she had a really wonderful way of weaving her own story into a beautiful, chaotic journey.

Highly recommend! Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy.

Rosie Meleady makes Italy sounds like heaven. If I hadn't wanted to go to Italy before, I certainly do now. Although the story is peppered with some sadness, it's a beautiful tribute.

Ever since reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes in high school, I have (maybe not so) secretly dreamed of buying a house in Italy and fixing it up--even though I have no money to do such a thing and no knowledge/experience in how to do any kind of renovating 🏚️.⁠
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So when I saw Rosie Meleady's book about doing just that, A Rosie Life in Italy, I knew it was a book for me.⁠
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After a series of life changes--some pretty traumatic and heartbreaking, Rosie and her husband are ready for a fresh start, so they make good on their promise from years ago to leave rainy Ireland 🌧️and buy their dream home in Italy ☀️. Of course, it's never as it easy as it sounds, but Rosie still finds moments of beauty and humor.⁠
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Rosie's ability to insert humor in just the right place is actually what carries this book. I'm also impressed with her strength, her relationship with her husband, her sense of adventure, and I, personally, really enjoyed reading about how she built her destination wedding business.⁠
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I will say, though, that this book is more about Rosie's life *leading up* to buying a house in Italy than it is about actually *buying and renovating* a house in Italy. (At least much more than I expected.) But I was okay with that because I like Rosie, I like her family, and I like her writing.⁠
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Book: A Rosie Life in Italy⁠
Author: Rosie Meleady⁠
Format: Digital⁠
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir⁠
Places Featured: Italy 🇮🇹, Ireland 🇮🇪, Spain 🇪🇸⁠
Review Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 (rounded up)⁠
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**I was given a version of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to @netgalley and @sourcebooks.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the rest of the series! The struggles and hijinks leading up to purchasing a rundown Italian villa left me laughing and rooting for this slightly nomadic, somewhat impulsive family unit.

How can you make the larger-than-life people and culture of Italy dull? I was anticipating a vibrant adventure similar to A Year in Tuscany. Instead I slogged through a very dry account that has been dragged out to create a series. What made it even worse was the fact that much of this part of her story took place during the worldwide COVID pandemic. Living through that once was enough.
I will not be reading the rest of this series.

When Rosie’s landlady without any warning doubles the rent on her shabby home in Ireland, Rosie without hesitation decides to up sticks and move with husband, son and daughter. Her initial choice was Spain but things changed and it was to Italy they went. Rosie has a way of turning her decisions into very reasonable explanations as to their necessity and is like a whirlwind once she decides on something.


Being a wedding planner hoping to offer sunny climes, romantic villas and backdrops Rosie is a typical digital nomad. Buying a derelict 22 roomed castle complete with eight squabbling cousins did not fall into her plans. Neither did she take into account the vagaries of Italian property laws, all of which had to be undertaken by different masters of the law. Finally no one took into account COVID, the quarantine, the long long closure of neighborhoods and countries, cutting people off completely from family and friends and economic disaster for many like Rosie.

The story goes from one incident to another (home ownership is hard and be prepared to slog it out), but Rosie and her husband soldier on. The end seems in sight despite so many hiccups on the way. Humorous but informative, descriptive and emotional, the book had it all.

This book had great storytelling! Whether it was good or bad times for the family the story was always interesting and easy to relate to. It had a similar feel to Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes which I also enjoyed. I wanted to know more about the renovation so I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series available on Kindle Unlimited. The discussion questions included will be helpful for book clubs.

Thank you to NetGalley and Source Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

My husband and I took our honeymoon in Italy. I can't say that I didn't consider moving to Italy and buying a house in the countryside. It was so enlightening to read about the not-so-glamourous side of moving abroad. This is a great read for an airplane.

So delightful! Laugh out loud while you follow this Irish family through the ups and downs of life. Addiction, moving to another country, Covid, and home renovations make for a great story and Meleady manages to find humor while she continues to work hard to make sure her family is happy and healthy. Released Oct 15, a great memoir!

. Rosie Meleady has a way of writing that’s escapist and uplifting, a perfect holiday read. I loved this book based on the unlikely purchase of a grand old house in Italy and accompanying dramas that ensued as the family go through times of grief, the uncertainty and upheaval of a move, an ongoing pandemic and financial issues. For me it was a nostalgic read having purchased our own property in Spain and all the highs and lows that such a purchase entails and the crazy times of Covid that’s already becoming a distant memory. Looking forward to reading other books by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This book begins with the main setup and then goes back in time to give us a wider picture about all the things that have happened in Rosie’s life pertaining to the home she began the book with.

Memoirs of this type work well if the author’s writing style personally appeals to me and I enjoyed the tone from the very first page.

Rosie is a hard working person with a sense of humour and some setbacks in life. I did not ( but should have) seen the COVID section coming. It was hard to see the precautions talked about again but also strange as if it was almost fictional. It seems near impossible to think that such dramatic things happened so recently!

Unlike fiction, this book talks of bureaucracy that impact lives of people who want to make a life in a new country. It is not a very exciting topic but it is presented in an entertaining manner.

In the midst of the humour, the enormity of the pandemic is treated with the respect and seriousness it deserves.

This book is a personal journey, one that continues on with more books. I would love to try the rest in the series to see what happens next.

Highly recommend this book to anyone who finds the blurb interesting.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

I liked this book! It was fun and entertaining. I think it was a bit dull in some moments being a memoir, but it was still very entertaining other than the few slow parts

Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

alcohol-issues, England, Tuscany, family-drama, family-dynamics, family-expectations, situational-humor, verbal-humor, laugh-riot, relatives, relationships, relocating, pandemic, panic-attacks, bridezilla, wedding-madness, compromise, memories, memoir, bureaucracy, grieving, grief, unpleasant-neighbors, unputdownable, nonfiction, travel, travel-with-family*****

This is the first in a series. This is the story of Rosie (who develops a business as a wedding planner), her family (including the untimely death of her sister), marriage to Ronan (professional photographer) and their family (two kids and two dogs) together up to the time they actually take possession of said rundown villa near the end of the pandemic tight restrictions. Theirs is a peripatetic and somewhat chaotic lifestyle that is also way too much fun! I laughed my way through it and plan to read the rest as well!
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected proof copy from Sourcebooks via NetGalley. Thank you!
#ARosieLifeInItaly by Rosie Meleady #NetGalley @Sourcebooks #Nonfiction #Humor #Relocating

This was an enjoyable, Laugh out Loud, stressful, and fun read.
It follows the Rosie as she gives up being a writer to move to become a wedding planner and work with her sister. She ends up deciding to move to Italy to have her business there after some things in the her home area happen. She moves to Italy, tries to buy a house as the world is closing because of Covid 19, figure out how to pivot as there aren't any more weddings and slow down to enjoy the beauty of the place she decided to call home.
I was really enjoying the story until Covid popped up and then had to relive all that again which I did not enjoy. She was trying to close on a house with multiple family members involved but couldn't because of the way the city and country governments are. So it' was more stressful to read than I expected. So Happy for how it ended and I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

"A Rosie Life in Italy" is a sweet, tender, and heartbreaking memoir set against the Irish and Italian countrysides. It's a delightful commentary on the fickleness of life, the cyclical nature of grief, and the beauty of letting the universe carry you through it. The straightforward writing style grounds you in Rosie's lifestyle and inspires you to take a risk or two.

I thought A Rosie Life in Italy was going to be a fictional escape, but it was a nonfiction/memoir. Author Rosie Meleady’s tale is not so much about buying and renovating a dilapidated house in Italy, as much as it is the story of a free-spirited family who make impulsive and not fully thought out decisions. They travel back and forth from Ireland to Europe multiple times as their mediocre business/economy acumen leads them further and further into financial muck.

While their life skills are in question, their love of family is obvious and abundant. Every choice they make is in hopes of making the family’s situation better. Rosie is a wedding planner and Ronan is a photographer, so together they venture into the destination wedding scene. Along the way, they meet interesting people, their children have great experiences, and they fall in love with Italy.

After a bit of time in Italy, they start looking for a home to make the transition more permanent. So, they didn’t truly “accidentally” buy a house. They sort of tripped over themselves in the half-hearted attempt to buy what seemed like the best home and best business opportunity on the market. The biggest problems being crazy, convoluted ownership of said property, the ridiculous amount of repair and renovation needed, and CoVid19 as the pandemic got in the way of all everyday life.

Ms. Meleady has me intrigued enough to start following her blog, and I wish them all the best in their original endeavors as destination wedding planners with full package plans.

Rosie has been a writer and publisher; more recently she pivoted to wedding planning. She’s had opportunities to coordinate weddings in Ireland and in distant locations. She’d really enjoy being able to just move to Italy, where many of the destination weddings she helps plan take place. It’s a crazy notion, but maybe someday she will be able to pull it off.

In this memoir, Rosie Meleady shares the background of how she did eventually end up in Italy as an Irish expatriate. As I found out towards the end of the book, she started a blog during the Covid pandemic lockdowns and wrote all about how she was in Italy, a country that had a notoriously bad hotspot of deaths. Knowing that, the style of the book made a lot of sense. It does read like a long meandering tale, simply chronological from year/situation A through to year/situation F. I felt often that it could use a bit more structure.

At the beginning, this was most the case; I was thinking about DNFing it around the 15% mark on my Kindle. But I did come back to it and found it got more interesting, so I did finish. I also see that she’s written several more books continuing the story that begins in this book. Here, she ends with buying a house in Italy, and in other books, the renovation tales continue. In real time, she is now close to opening up part of the large house for paying guests.

A Rosie Life in Italy is basically an introduction to a long collection of blog posts, edited together in five books to this point. It is fun, and a great travelogue. Rosie is an entertaining storyteller and makes her adventures come alive on the page. If you love Italy, stories of expatriates buying homes and settling into the Italian life, you’ll very likely be satisfied with this.

How many people do this---move to another country, buy a run-down villa, deal with the Italian bureaucracy, start a business and then deal with a Covid shut-down? Funny and eye-rolling story if you can deal with utter uncertainty? Not my idea of a good decision, but an enjoyable escape from my ordinary life.

Rating: ⭐⭐½ (2.5/5 stars)

A Rosie Life in Italy is a memoir that chronicles Rosie Meleady’s experiences as she and her family relocate to Italy in search of a new life. However, instead of finding the charming, transformative narrative one might expect from a story set in a beautiful Italian countryside, I found myself struggling with the book's tone and direction.

The protagonist comes across as aimless, drifting from one idea to the next without much forethought. This impulsiveness not only affects her life but also pulls her husband and children along with little consideration for how these whims impact them. While spontaneous adventures can add excitement to a memoir, here the lack of intentionality felt more frustrating than charming. It became difficult to sympathize with her decisions or stay invested in the family’s journey.

A significant portion of the book focuses on the family’s experience during the COVID-19 lockdown, and unfortunately, this section did not resonate with me. I found it particularly hard to connect with the tone, perhaps because the challenges of lockdown are still a fresh memory for many readers. Rather than adding emotional depth or insight, the narrative during this part felt draining and slowed the pace of the book.

While A Rosie Life in Italy offers occasional moments of humor and some glimpses of Italy’s charm, the overall structure lacked cohesion. The narrative felt scattered, much like the protagonist’s life, making it a challenge to fully engage with the story. Readers who enjoy free-spirited, meandering memoirs may appreciate this book more, but it wasn’t a great fit for me.

Overall, I found the story to be a mixed bag, with potential that remained unrealized. I would rate it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Love this story - I am a dreamer and love to live vicariously through the protagonists as they relocate ti another country! Wasn’t so fun re-living Covid but it was a great account of what life was like in Italy at the time! Thankful for this opportunity to read a lovely story!