Lessons Learned by Nora Roberts (1986)

I haven't read a Nora Roberts in three months. She will have written five more books in this time and reissued ten others. I will never catch up - and I don't really plan to either, this is just fluff between more valuable readings.

This is definitely a 1980's book, where the man character Juliet keeps referring to herself as an 80's woman, bent on making a career, no room for a man in her life, etc. (Also, no cell phones or Internet.) She is a publicist for a publisher and has to take the gorgeous Italian chef Carlo Fanconi around the US on a book tour. Again, a glimpse into two careers - the grueling pace of book tours and a bit about being a chef.  Juliet was a bit whiny for my taste, Carlo too unbelievably perfect - sensitive, romantic, heart of gold, etc. but this is a Silhouette romance which tend to be like this. 

When I grasped the situation - career woman in New York with man deeply rooted in Italy, I was afraid that it would end up like the Trigiani book Brava Valentina, where the author doesn't address the huge geographic distance between the couple. Roberts does acknowledge the issue and plants a few seeds throughout the book, so that it doesn't sound implausible at the end that the couple does find a way to bridge the gap.