University Chronicles

Does The Italy Affair refer to international intrigue or romantic entanglement? For Maggie, it may be both. Four years after her adventures with The War Council, UC Berkeley Professor Maggie McGrew's professional life couldn't be better. In addition to teaching communication studies, Maggie has added consulting gigs with Silicon Valley tech companies and a successful book to her resume. Her personal life is another story. Feeling a bit at loose ends, Maggie accepts her friend (and former War Council comrade) Monique's invitation to join her as one of the university representatives on an alumni association tour of the "Art Towns of Northern Italy." There, she discovers a region filled with beautiful art, amazing food, a variety of dogs, and an abundance of Aperol spritzes-not to mention a mysterious painting hidden in a corner of a botanical garden and maybe, just maybe, love. The Italy Affair is the second book in the University Chronicles series. Like The War Council, it offers a humorous look at life and love, this time amid all the romance of a trip to Italy.

Does The Italy Affair refer to international intrigue or romantic entanglement? For Maggie, it may be both. Four years after her adventures with The War Council, UC Berkeley Professor Maggie McGrew's professional life couldn't be better. In addition to teaching communication studies, Maggie has added consulting gigs with Silicon Valley tech companies and a successful book to her resume. Her personal life is another story. Feeling a bit at loose ends, Maggie accepts her friend (and former War Council comrade) Monique's invitation to join her as one of the university representatives on an alumni association tour of the "Art Towns of Northern Italy." There, she discovers a region filled with beautiful art, amazing food, a variety of dogs, and an abundance of Aperol spritzes-not to mention a mysterious painting hidden in a corner of a botanical garden and maybe, just maybe, love. The Italy Affair is the second book in the University Chronicles series. Like The War Council, it offers a humorous look at life and love, this time amid all the romance of a trip to Italy.

Ever wonder what it would be like to be able to hire a team like the one from "Mission: Impossible" to solve your relationship woes? A young communications professor attempts to do just that in "The War Council." After the love of her life leaves her for a job on the other side of the world, Professor Maggie McGrew is devastated. To Maggie, his leaving-and not taking her with him-was just not logical. Instead of merely mourning the breakup, Maggie pours herself into the study of love. She comes up with the concept of a paramilitary-style relationship counseling service that she calls "The War Council" because, as they say, all is fair in love and war. Maggie then enlists her friends and colleagues-from fellow professors to a university psychologist and the rugby coach-to serve in a variety of roles on the council. Maggie's best friend Kathy (the psychologist) hates everything about the War Council but reluctantly agrees to be a member. Kathy also wants to help Maggie get over the boyfriend that left, so she uses some of Maggie's own concepts to set her up with a new beau. When Maggie discovers the truth about the new man in her life and Kathy's role in bringing them together and the ex-boyfriend suddenly returns, she learns that love is anything but logical. In this humorous look at life and love, each of the main characters tells their version of the events that surround the creation of the War Council and the effect it had on their lives.