"The Italian Lover" ~ CONGRATULATIONS!

Well, we have our winners! There were three (because there were 15 comments):

Gwendolyn B.
Wendy aka Misswendiki
Olympianlady

I'll be in touch via email to get your snailmail addys, and soon after that I hope to hear that you received your copy!

The winner of the candle was Gwendolyn B. (she was entered twice because of the West of Mars - Win a Book blog post). I'll get that out to as soon as she decides which candle or candleholder she prefers.

Happy Valentine's Day and my thanks to all who participated. I wish you all could have won the prize!

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No, I'm not giving away a real, live, flesh-and-blood Italian lover. (I assure you that, if I had one, I'd keep him for myself. Yowza!) I am giving away up to five copies of Robert Hellenga's The Italian Lover, a novel of romance, art and food in Florence, Italy, which is almost as good, at least to those of us who love good books.

Anyway, thanks to the good folks at Hatchette Book Group, I'll be drawing names for a copy of The Italian Lover (now in paperback) on February 14, just in time for Valentine's Day. For every five comments I get, I'll add another copy of the book for up to five copies. If you blog about the contest and send me the link, it'll be counted as another comment and another entry. (So sorry, but winners are restricted to residents of the U.S. and Canada, and the book cannot be mailed to P.O. Boxes.)

Here is some information about the book, which I plan to review here in the near future. (I can't get enough of that cover art!)

THE ITALIAN LOVER

An exhilarating novel of romance, art, and food in Florence, featuring the beloved Margot Harrington, who graced Robert Hellenga's The Sixteen Pleasures. Margot Harrington's memoir about her discovery in Florence of a priceless masterwork of Renaissance erotica - and the misguided love affair it inspired - is now, 25 years later, being made into a movie.

Margot, with the help of her lover, Woody, writes a script that she thinks will validate her life. Of course their script is not used, but never mind - happy endings are the best endings for movies, as Margot eventually comes to see.

At the former convent in Florence where "The Sixteen Pleasures" - now called "The Italian Lover," - is being filmed, Margot enters into a drama she never imagined, where her ideas of home, love, art, and aging collide with the imperatives of commerce and the unknowability of other cultures and other people.

For more about The Italian Lover , Robert Hellenga, and his other books (which sound fascinating and wonderful!), visit Robert's website.