Marlena de Blasi is the bestselling author of A Thousand Days in Venice and Tuscan Secrets. She has been a chef, a journalist, a food and wine consultant and a restaurant critic.

She is also the author of two cookbooks of Italian food. She and her husband, Fernando, moved from Venice to San Casciano where Tuscan Secrets was written and now live in Orvieto, the setting for An Umbrian Love Story. Marlena and Fernando also run their own business leading small gastronomic tours through Tuscany and Umbria.