STAYING SANE WHILE TRAVELING WITH YOUR SPOUSE … Or why your partner's annoying habits might make for the best vacation ever!

GLEN ROCK, NJ, 2008 -- (MediaQuire) You're together in Paris—the City of Love—for the first time. He wants to eat snails from a tree and you can't stand the smell of fish. You're driving through the Tuscan countryside. You say right; he says left. He finds the best restaurant in Brugge by stalking a perfectly nice couple in a Mercedes.

In her latest book, Up at the Villa: Travels with My Husband, Linda Dini Jenkins admits, "I'm a planner and my husband Tim is a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy—and he became the catalyst for some of the wild and crazy adventures we've experienced in our travels."

Fellow travelers who delve into this book will get permission to laugh at themselves and know they're not alone when they encounter all kinds of predictable (and not so predictable) glitches on the road—language barriers, shopping for food, dealing with ferry strikes and learning what the left lane on the autostrada really means.

Up at the Villa is a beautifully illustrated collection of stories, personal essays and poetry written with passion and wit, but it's also a journey into a marriage and a story about trusting that something new and wonderful is always just around the corner, even if you haven't found that particular corner on the map just yet. It's a testament to the fact that what makes for fundamental conflicts in day-to-day situations can actually result in amazing discoveries on the road.

Anyone dreaming about renting a villa in Italy must read this book… and at the very least…you may consider kidnapping her husband Tim as your permanent chef and navigator. After renting villas in Italy to thousands of travelers a year, I finally figured out why people love the concept so much.

— Mario Scalzi, president and founder of The Parker Company

So whether you're planning a trip to the Sistine Chapel or to your comfy flowered sofa, Up at the Villa will be excellent company. You'll explore Tuscany, Lombardy, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Brugge, Paris and a moveable feast of other destinations. You'll get practical advice from a seasoned traveler and even a few treasured family recipes. Funny and poignant, Up at the Villa is ultimately the story of every woman's journey with the person she loves, for better or for worse.

To request an advance review copy or to schedule an interview with Linda Dini Jenkins, please contact:

Gail Kearns, To Press and Beyond, (805) 898-9941

Up At The Villa: Travels with my Husband

About the Author

Linda Dini Jenkins is a freelance business writer who has been writing poetry and stories and putting on plays with her friends for as long as she can remember. Travel is her passion, so writing stories about her travels just comes naturally.

She is the author of Journey of a Returning Christian: Writing Into God and has been published in a wide range of books, newspapers and literary magazines, including Vermont Voices (Volumes 1 and 2), South Florida Poetry Review, Phoebe: A Journal of Feminist Scholarship Theory & Aesthetics, Poeti italo-americani e italo-canadesi, Tampa Review, Peregrine, Writer to Writer, Color Wheel/Mink Hills Journal, Bay Windows and Christmas Blessings. She is the author of the one-act play, "Things I Never Told My Mother" and is co-author, with Barbara Worton, of the highly acclaimed play, "If I'm Talking, Why Aren't You Listening?"

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