One Italian Summer meets Eat, Pray, Love in this heartwarming novel following a recent divorcee’s escape to Spain where delicious food, romantic adventures, and the transformative magic of starting over leads her to reconnect with family, forge new friendships, and rediscover herself. Dahlia Delaney’s marriage just imploded, her friend group picked a side (not hers), and her fancy San Francisco life now fits into a single suitcase. Armed with a broken heart, a freelance marketing gig, and one blurry childhood memory of her abuela’s garden, she impulsively hops on a flight to Valencia, Spain, to reconnect with distant family—and maybe herself. But Valencia isn’t just sunny plazas and sangria. There’s her chaotic new job at a quirky expat bar, a family she barely knows but who embrace her like she’s always belonged, and a brooding American bar owner who’s frustratingly attractive and entirely too familiar. As Dahlia stumbles through language mishaps, clashing cultures, and late-night paella with new friends, she begins to realize that the fresh start she came for might turn into something even better—if she can let go of the life she planned and embrace the one unfolding around her. Perfect for anyone who’s ever dreamed of starting over somewhere with better wine, The Valencia Expat Club is a sparkling, laugh-out-loud romantic escape about second chances, delicious detours, and finding home where you least expect it. "Patrick’s captivating first-person-narrated novel combines romance with the story of a woman’s journey of self-discovery. Expertly framed by its Valencia setting, including food, wine, and location, it will appeal to readers who enjoy immersive romances set in faraway places and stories of soul-searching." — Library Journal June Patrick writes witty, escapist stories set in swoony, faraway places. She is obsessed with all things European and dreams of moving to the Riviera where she can run around all day like Grace Kelly. A Northern California native, she now moves around the country like a nomad with her real-life hero of a husband and their toddler daughter. They currently call Colorado home where they begrudgingly battle snow. You can find her at JunePatrick.com or connect on Instagram and TikTok: @JunePatrickAuthor. Chapter 1 Chapter 1 There are exactly seventy-two ceiling tiles in Dr. Martinez’s downtown couples counseling office. I know this because I counted them three times while James explained why we should get divorced, his voice competing with the angry buzz of fluorescent lights that made everyone look like they were starring in their own personal horror film. I’d seen it coming—had practically penciled it into my Google calendar between “Buy more coffee filters” and “Cancel joint Costco membership”—but that didn’t make it any less surreal. I never really expected divorce to be pretty. You see the slow unraveling of marriages every day in Netflix dramas and in celebrity gossip columns. You think you know what’s coming. But the reality of it still impales you like a lance. James wasn’t wrong. We should be getting divorced. But that didn’t change the fact that it made me feel like an utter failure. What kind of overachiever fails at a marriage at thirty? Now, three months and twenty-seven passive-aggressive exchanges later, I sat at my home coffee table, staring at final divorce papers while trying not to cry into my fourth cup of coffee. The mug said “Best Wife Ever”—a white elephant gift from James’s office Christmas party last year. What a fun little joke. But that was just how life went, wasn’t it? The realities rarely match our expectations. Honestly, I think our marriage had been unraveling since the ink dried on the license—the threads of connection fraying one by one like my favorite college sweater I refuse to throw away. Our nights grew quieter. The distance between us in bed stretched wider than the San Andreas Fault. My silk pajamas gathered dust in the drawer, replaced by shapeless T-shirts that matched the apathy settling over our home like Bay Area fog. The laughter stopped. The charming anecdotes became obnoxiously redundant. Finally, we faced the truth. No babies to bind us. No major assets complicating things. No love to renew us. The next thing we knew, we were arguing over who got to keep the good ladle. I sighed, looking around the room. I was going to miss this house more than my actual marriage. We’d gotten lucky and managed to snag a little town house across from San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park when the registered sex offender renting it had died in the back bedroom, and the owner couldn’t give it away. (Hey, in this housing market, you take what you can get, even if it comes with a questionable history and the occasional unexplained creak.) We’d turned the cozy hamlet of blue paint with a brick fireplace tucked away in the eucalyptus into a home. But now I resisted the urge to pull up the Zillow listing. The idea that it was