It’s not always easy to say where the idea for a book came from. Sometimes it’s as nebulous as an overheard conversation or a fleeting feeling. But for my new book, MRS. ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE, I do know what created the spark for the idea.
I have always drooled over villas in Europe. My husband and I have stayed several times on the French Riviera, and I’ve gazed with envy at those pastel-colored buildings amid their lush grounds, sometimes overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea. How much I’d love to come out onto a terrace like that and stare down the coastline, watching the yachts sail past. Sigh.
All a lovely dream until I was on Lake Maggiore in the north of Italy, actually researching another book, called On Her Majesty’s Frightfully Secret Service. It is a beautiful area of small lakeside towns, and the hills are dotted with magnificent villas. In the years before WWII these would have been populated by rich people, some of them British aristocrats. People who didn’t have to work for a living and who could spend time admiring the lake scenery.
As we walked along the lake shore we came to an abandoned villa. It must have been magnificent once, but it was covered in ivy and other creepers. The windows were gaping holes; the grounds were overgrown. I stood staring at it in wonder. Who could own something like this and just leave it? If the owner had died, surely someone must have inherited? And if they didn’t want it, why not sell it before it became uninhabitable? Of course, being me, always a hopeless romantic, I started to think that maybe we could buy it and bring it back to life. My practical husband stepped in. The work was way beyond us. The house would need major reconstruction, and we were not going to spend months or years in Italy overseeing such a project, even if we could afford it.
Reluctantly I walked away, but I carry the picture of that villa on my phone. Then I thought that at least I could own it in a story. I could create a character who came upon a lovely deserted villa and who brought it back to life. So I placed my fictitious villa in my ideal spot — on the coast close to Marseille — and I gave it a perfect garden and a terrace overlooking the town and the sea. When my character sees it she mutters, “This is heaven.”
MRS. ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE is not all fun and happy endings, of course. My heroine, Mrs. Endicott, is dumped by her rat of a husband who is changing her for a younger model. He expects her to go away quietly, live in a cottage and keep cats. Instead, she steals his beloved Bentley and drives to the south of France with two women friends who have both been dealt a raw deal by life and society. There she makes a new life for herself, and in bringing the villa back to life she is finally able to find her own true potential. It’s a heartwarming story of female bonding, of second chances, finding love where you least expect it. But it’s also a story of resilience, of coming through WWII against all odds. It is probably one of the most personal of my books as I identified so strongly with Mrs. Endicott, I cheered for her, and I rejoiced when that villa was finally lived in again.
So would you dare to buy an abandoned villa if you found one? I still wish….
MRS. ENDICOTT’S SPLENDID ADVENTURE by Rhys Bowen
A Novel
Blindsided by betrayal in pre-WWII England, a woman charts a daring new course in this captivating tale of resilience, friendship, and new love by the bestselling author of The Rose Arbor and The Venice Sketchbook.
Surrey, England, 1938. After thirty devoted years of marriage, Ellie Endicott is blindsided by her husband’s appeal for divorce. It’s Ellie’s opportunity for change too. The unfaithful cad can have the house. She’s taking the Bentley. Ellie, her housekeeper Mavis, and her elderly friend Dora—each needing escape—impulsively head for parts unknown in the South of France.
With the Rhone surging beside them, they have nowhere to be and everywhere to go. Until the Bentley breaks down in the inviting fishing hamlet of Saint Benet. Here, Ellie rents an abandoned villa in the hills, makes wonderful friends among the villagers, and finds herself drawn to Nico, a handsome and enigmatic fisherman. As for unexpected destinations, the simple paradis of Saint Benet is perfect. But fates soon change when the threat of war encroaches.
Ellie’s second act in life is just beginning—and becoming an adventure she never expected.
Romance Historical | Women’s Fiction Friendship [Lake Union Publishing, On Sale: August 5, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781662527197 / ]
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About Rhys Bowen
Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including The Venice Sketchbook, nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; The Victory Garden; The Tuscan Child; and the World War II-based In Farleigh Field, winner of the Left Coast Crime Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel and the Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel.
Bowen’s work has won over twenty honors to date, including multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. Her books have been translated into many languages, and she has fans around the world, including over 60,000 Facebook followers.
Her Evan Evans series, set in Wales, is currently being reissued by Joffe Books in the U.K.
A transplanted Brit, Bowen divides her time between California and Arizona.
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