Jacqueline Bawtree

Coming Home Jacqueline Bawtree

THREE YEARS AFTER HER HEART WAS BROKEN, JACQUELINE DID WHAT SO MANY COURAGEOUS WOMEN HAD DONE IN THE TRAVEL MEMOIRS SHE HAD READ - SHE QUIT HER JOB, PUT HER CAREER ON HOLD AND TOOK OFF TO ITALY. Working in the fastest growing football code in Australia, Jacqueline had thrown herself into work in the years that followed her divorce. But, eager to find a way back to the person she once was, now without the life she'd imagined for her and her husband, Jacqueline planned her own escape to pursue la dolce vita.

Roaming the lush countryside of Tuscany while learning Italian in the medieval hilltop town of Siena, then throwing her energy into the annual harvests of a seaside farm on the island of Elba, Jacqueline embraces the romanticism of Italian life, as she begins to deconstruct her past and seek fresh inspiration for her future.

However, heading south, Jacqueline's life is again thrown into chaos when she finds herself being scraped off the cobblestones of Naples and wheeled into the back of an ambulance.

In hospital, she is forced to confront the things she wanted to leave behind. But, through food so good it would make your Nonna cry, and meeting the kind of generous people you only hear about, Jacqueline discovers the kindness of strangers, the importance of family and the significance of coming home.