Sarah-Kate Lynch's "Dolci di Love"

Sarah-Kate Lynch is the author of seven novels, including House of Daughters, Bread Alone, and Blessed Are The Cheesemakers.

Here she shares some casting ideas for an adaptation of her latest novel, Dolci di Love:

Like most writers, I love any excuse to not actually write anything so spend many a happy hour staring out the window and wondering which top international actress will end up begging to play the main character in my novel-in-progress.

Sometimes, I can’t think of just the right actress, so I have to make some adjustments: Meg Ryan but the old one, not the new one, for example. Or Jessica Lange from the Tootsie years.

My new book, Dolci di Love, is about a 42-year-old workaholic Manhattanite who goes to Tuscany to find her cheating husband but instead gets caught up in an underground web woven by The Secret League of Widowed Darners – a group of ancient Italian women hell-bent on providing happy endings.

I pretty much always consider Sandra Bullock for my main character because she is a comedian who does good sad, but as a back-up, in this instance, I would have Kate Winslet, only older. Given that films seem to take an age to get made, this could actually work out.

For Lily’s husband Daniel, I would employ Bradley Cooper just for having the perfect movie star’s name. For the handsome Italian, Alessandro, who threatens to give Lily a different kind of happy ending, I would personally hand select either Sarah’s boyfriend Luc from Brothers & Sisters, or Olivier Martinez who used to go out with Kylie Minogue but now is with Halle Berry.

As for Violetta Ferretti, spiritual leader of The Secret League of Widowed Darners, it would have to be Dame Judi Dench, no question, and for the character of Fiorella Fiorucci, the eightysomething whippersnapper who refuses to wear black and can dance the light fandango, Betty White.

Sarah-Kate Lynch lives part of the year on the wild west coast of New Zealand but travels as often as she can to the vineyards of Champagne, the streets of New York, and the hilltop towns of Tuscany.

Visit her website and blog, and read more about Dolci di Love.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Sarah-Kate Lynch & Ted.

--Marshal Zeringue