Five Things

If there was a lifetime achievement award for being a good girl, professor Gina Ferrari would win it hands down. But when she flies to Italy to plead with her son to leave Pizza University and finish his college degree, she bumps into a life she only dreamed of.

Gina doesn’t want to leave, but she has a career, a snarky daughter, a score to settle with her deadbeat brother, and an ex-husband she needs to have a serious talk with. Then there’s the awkward fact that she hasn’t been entirely honest with Marc Edwards, the man in Rome who shows Gina how to live and love.

She would regretfully consider their encounter a memory to be cherished, if it wasn’t for the fact that Marc shows up where she teaches, to facilitate college-wide budget cuts. Among her colleagues, he quickly becomes the most egregious person on campus.

Marc shares with Gina his prescription for life in the form of five things, none of which involves a budget or a cutback of any kind. Unfortunately, Gina doesn’t take advice well, especially if it could lead to her own happiness.