Lucy Entwhistle is swept into marriage by rich charismatic widower, Everard Wemyss. Together they live in The Willows, an old sprawling mansion which they share with the specter of his dead wife… John Middleton Murray famously described Vera as “Wuthering Heights by Jane Austen.” True, the novel does feature an intense, tempestuous romance at its center but fans of Elizabeth Von Arnim’s famous work Enchanted April will recognize the same mordant wit on display in this tale of mismatched lovers – a wit that is perhaps more biting and bittersweet than Austen’s.

Elizabeth von Arnim"s witty romance from the 1920s is about four women from London who rent an Italian Castle "on the shores of the Mediterranean ... furnished for the month of April." The warmth of the Italian spring and its people rejuvenate them in unexpected ways, leading to a series of romantic complications. "Extraordinarily well-written ... It is witty, human, often very beautiful." —Punch. "Brims with magic and laughter." —The Guardian.

Mrs Wilkins and Mrs Arbuthnot, cowed and neglected by their husbands, make a daring plan: they will have a holiday. Leaving a drab and rainy London one April and arriving on the shores of the Mediterranean, they discover a flower-filled paradise of beauty, warmth and leisure. Joined by the beautiful Lady Caroline and domineering Mrs Fisher, also in flight from the burdens of their daily lives, the four women proceed to transform themselves and their prospects.

The Enchanted April is a 1922 novel by British writer Elizabeth von Arnim. The work was inspired by a month-long holiday to the Italian Riviera, probably the most widely read (as an English and American best seller in 1923) and perhaps the lightest and most ebullient of her novels. Von Arnim wrote and set the book in the 15th century Castello Brown. Critic Terence de Vere White credited The Enchanted April with making the Italian resort of Portofino fashionable.Elizabeth von Arnim (31 August 1866 – 9 February 1941), born Mary Annette Beauchamp, was an English novelist. Born in Australia, she married a German aristocrat, and her earliest works are set in Germany. Her first marriage made her Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and her second Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell. After her first husband's death, she had a three-year affair with the writer H. G. Wells, then later married Frank Russell, elder brother of the Nobel prize-winner and philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a cousin of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield. Though known in early life as May, her first book introduced her to readers as Elizabeth, which she eventually became friends and finally to family. Her writings are ascribed to Elizabeth von Arnim. She used the pseudonym Alice Cholmondeley for only one novel, Christine, published in 1917.