Villa Amore (2025)

Left at the proverbial altar by her fiancé Kyle, Liara, an efficiency expert in Chicago, is encouraged by her widowed mother Maryann to go on her honeymoon alone, Italy which is her dream vacation in her parents having met and fallen in love there themselves, hence her Italian name despite not being Italian. As she is about ready to leave Rome to go home still feeling unsettled about her life without Kyle, Liara decides on the spur of the moment to go to Campena for the day, there where her parents' dream villa is located, the villa her father had always vowed to buy, but didn't end up doing so before he passed. Liara is surprised to see the villa posted for sale at a real estate agent's office in town for EUR1. Accused by Kyle for not being spontaneous, she ends up buying it if only as a memento for Maryann, thus it not mattering that she finds the villa is in total disrepair. She however learns that these EUR1 villas come with some fine print strings attached, most specifically that she has one year to bring it up to living standard, she not doing so which could ban her from ever reentering the European Union. While selling is an option, these villas are largely unsalable hence their nominal price. Meeting American-Italian dual citizen Leo, she decides to stay temporarily for the ninety days on her tourist visa to do as much work on the villa as she can after she is ultimately able to convince him to help her and despite the townsfolk not initially warming to her in viewing her with some suspicion. What happens with her stay is affected by falling for Leo, who has his own own issues concerning his past life in the States and his father, and Kyle reentering her life. —Huggo