Debut author Andra Loy serves up a delightful blend of witty banter, swoon-worthy romance, and sparks of magic where readers will be swept away to Rome, Italy, in this imaginative, no-spice rom-com with a dash of magical realism. Perfect for travel enthusiasts, fans of the rivals-to-lovers trope, and readers of Sarah Adams, Sophie Cousens, and Ashley Poston.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Roman Holiday Rule by Andra Loy, which releases on August 4th 2026.
Lexi Walker has finally committed to the Italian adventure that she and her late mother dreamed of for years–complete with a meticulously crafted itinerary, four sealed letters to open at Rome’s most iconic sites, and her mother’s final painting to present at the art festival Lexi is helping organize. She’s ready for the perfect Roman getaway. What she doesn’t expect is for her mother’s artwork to start manifesting in real life, turning her carefully planned trip into something unpredictable.
Italian-American architect Mark Russo has sworn off American tourists after having his heart broken, and he’s certainly not about to let another one distract him from winning the restoration bid that could reunite his estranged father with his grandfather. But when the captivating woman next to him on the flight to Rome proposes a photography challenge–whoever captures the heart of Italy in seven days wins–Mark can’t resist the bet or her charm.
As Lexi follows the letters from her mother around the city, she encounters Mark everywhere she goes. Their competitive banter turns to undeniable chemistry, but they both know the cardinal rule of holiday romances. Will a little magic–and a lot of mishaps–break the Roman Holiday Rule?
EXCERPT
Seventeen
Lexi
That evening, walking down narrow, touristflooded streets lined with shops and restaurants, I keep fingering the chain around my neck, unused to its emptiness.
Halfway to the restaurant, my phone rings. That must be Julie, since I didn’t get a chance to call her yesterday when I landed. Without looking at the number, I answer, pausing in the orange glow of a lit, wrought-iron sconce.
“Sorry, I was going to call tonight.”
“Flattered, but this is urgent,” a gravelly, amused male voice says.
I pull the phone away from my ear and scowl at the number. Mark. I don’t even try to stop the “ugh” that comes out of my mouth, because that tiny flutter in my stomach at his voice is super inconvenient, misplaced, and confusing. “I thought you were my best friend.”
“I get that a lot.”
I snort, then grit my teeth. He’s not funny. I only semilaughed because of the delirium of jet lag.
“Are you at your hotel?”
“No, I’m headed to a restaurant. Why?” I turn down the next street and gasp. Massive, ancient columns line the front of a building. From my research I remember it’s Hadrian’s Temple, but I didn’t expect it to be so . . . imposing. This is on the schedule in a few days, so I keep walking.
“The airline dropped a suitcase off at my place while I wasn’t there, except it’s yours.”
“What? You have my luggage?”
He chuckles. “Well, I don’t have twenty pairs of shoes.”
I stop. If he were here, I’d slay him with eye daggers. “You went through my suitcase?” Apparently for Mark, three backup pairs of shoes, including sandals, is an uncountably high number. And here I thought architects were math-y.
“No, that was a joke.” He growls, and I can visualize him pinching the bridge of his nose like he did on the airplane. “Please tell me you have mine so we don’t have to wait for the airline to fix this.”
I’m caught on the fact Mark made another joke. He has an odd sense of enemy behavior.
“I won’t be at the hotel until after dinner.”
“Okay, call me when you’re there.”
I hang up before I say something I regret, like how annoying it is that in a city this size, I can’t get any peace from him or that for some inexplicable reason, it was nice to hear his voice.
It’s not until my bowl of pasta on the red plaid oilcloth is half eaten that I can spare a thought for anything but this meal. The freshly made pasta and homemade sauce with chunks of baconlike meat they call guanciale is heaven. The recipe is a family secret—I asked.
I may already have the answer to the bet. This meal could be the heart of Italy. It’s definitely the heart of my mouth.
At this early hour, there’s not a soul but me in the dining room, so I prop my phone against my glass and video call Julie.
She opens with, “It’s about time!” and pops a potato chip into her mouth. She’s on a busy New York City street, and with her bright orange glasses and a matching chunky necklace not many people could pull off with success, she looks right at home. “You’ve been on the ground for a full day. What part of ‘let me know when you get in’ was confusing?”
I laugh. “Like you weren’t tracking my flights.”
She points a chip at the camera. “Touché. So what’s this message about the reception program? It didn’t make any sense.”
“Did you switch the design graphics on the reception program?”
Julie screws up her face and checks both ways at a crosswalk. “No. Why would I do that? I loved what we came up with.”
“That cityscape isn’t what got printed. Look.” I pull out the program and my mom’s Trevi Fountain envelope, holding them both up in front of the camera. She’s pored over those unopened envelopes with me for the past year, so her reaction is as strong as mine was.
She stops and squints at her phone screen, eyes darting between the two papers. Someone honks, and she starts moving again. “Whoa. That’s uncanny.”
“Strange, right? And then this morning, a hawker tried to sell me this exact arrangement.” I point at the watercolor bouquet on the seat of the boat below the hot air balloons.
She shivers, eyes wide. “You just blew my mind for a second. But I’m sure there’s an explanation. That combination of flowers isn’t unusual, so it’s not wild that more than one person thought to arrange it like that. Freaky, but not impossible. Ask Gia.”
She’s right. It’s bizarre, but it’s not like something fantastical is going on.
“So how’d you spend your first day? What’s the big plan this evening?”
I panorama the phone around the outoftheway, familyowned pasta joint with four items on the menu. The walls are cluttered with mismatched knickknacks on shelves and tiny framed photos of family.
“Okay, nothing special.” Julie shrugs. “Not jealous yet.”
“That’s because you’re not eating this.” I fork another bite of fettuccine into my mouth, humming with pleasure again, like I have with every single bite. Up until now, al dente was a cute cultural anecdote, not a way of living. Whatever I’ve been eating for years labeled as pasta was . . . not.
I catch her up on the flights, yesterday’s reception, and today’s events, lingering over my final bites. Not only to savor the buttery noodles and garlicky tomato sauce, but savoring the fact that Mark is waiting.
(Let’s not analyze if that delicious bubble of anticipation means ha, I’m making him wait, or mmm, I’ll see him again. My pasta coma is confusing all my body signals.)
“So you’re heading back to your hotel for the evening because this guy needs his suitcase?”
“I need my suitcase, Julie. All those outfits are coordinated with the tenday forecast and my scheduled activities.” And my festival skirt is irreplaceable. Vintage, from my mom’s time in Rome.
“Dire,” she deadpans, and I laugh, because she would not be fine without her whole arsenal of fashion choices.
“Speaking of clothes, how’s the shopping trip going?”
She fills me in and gushes with anticipation at the Broadway show she’s got lined up for this evening, then we disconnect. I’m glad we closed the office this week, or I’d be tempted to help her remotely with the workload. Instead, our conversation has left me even more focused on following through with my plans here, more determined to power through this Mark-suitcase wrinkle.
I walk the two blocks back to my historic hotel building. Sure enough, a suitcase that isn’t mine sits on the far side of the lobby near the receptionist’s desk. I dial Mark’s number, giving the suitcase a light kick with my shoe, and he answers on the first ring.
“Is your luggage a tan hard case with a wonky wheel?” Honestly, it must be his because that’s pretty much how I’d describe him. Like man, like suitcase. (I’m using the wonky wheel as a metaphor for his weird sense of hu—for his unwelcome opinions.)
He lets out a long breath. “Yeah, that’s the one. I’ll come by with yours. Unless you want to do the switch in a dark alley like a spaghetti Western?”
See? Wonky wheel. He wants the helpless tourist scared out of her mind. Possibly lost. Whatever it’ll take to make me run home to Boston.
After he tells me he’s on his way, I google his address since I still remember it from the luggage forms. It’s only three blocks from here, and he said earlier this was urgent, so I wait with it downstairs, settling on the couch since the barrestaurant off the lobby closes early on Sunday evenings.
Sixtyone minutes later, my neck starts to heat, and I clench my teeth. I’m wasting my evening when he could have been here in five minutes—it’s not the point that I’m exhausted and content to be scrolling my phone in the deserted lobby. He probably thinks a tourist stuck in her hotel is one less tourist making a mess in his city.
Finally, he opens the hotel door. I stand, glaring across the space at him. He must feel my annoyance from his side of the room because he whistles the opening measures of the soundtrack to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. We face off, eyes narrowed.
He pushes my wheeled suitcase across the wood floor toward me, like this is a hostage exchange at an abandoned mine. So I shove his suitcase to him.
I hold my breath—the suitcases are barreling along, set to pass about a foot apart. At the last second, the crooked wheel sticks, throwing it off course. His suitcase tackles mine, bringing them both to the floor in a heap.
On accident, my exhale comes out as a laugh. We meet at the crime scene in the middle of the lobby.
“Thanks for bringing it over,” I say. It’s a type of conversational hustle. Start positive, then zing. “Did you get lost?”
“No.” The word lingers.
“Was the suitcase too heavy to manage?”
“No, why?” He frowns.
“Just trying to work out why it took you over an hour to walk three blocks.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “You memorized my address?” His voice is carefully neutral, but there’s an intense question in his eyes.
“You took my phone number. And you’re deflecting.” I fold my arms.
“I was at dinner across town.” He’s looking at me, as focused as he was at the airport, and his stormy expression does something uncomfortable to my stomach. “I left before dessert.” He pulls a small package wrapped in wax paper out of his bag and passes it to me. “My grandma sent you one of her homemade cannoli Siciliani.”
A sigh slips out until I’m drained of annoyance, leaving me empty. Cannoli are my favorite dessert. Mom and I ordered them in Boston’s North End every month when I was a kid.
I stare at the wrapped cannolo, precious, fragile, and sweet. I will have to eat it alone. This moment is what I was most afraid of in coming to Italy, why I tried to plan my time here within an inch of its life. But there’s no way to prepare for the crippling loneliness and loss when it hits in the form of a single cannolo.
Mom’s letters left a piece of her with me, kept her memory alive in every second I wondered what she had to say to me. What am I going to do after Italy, when all the letters are opened, when she’s still gone and there’s nothing left?
“Please tell your grandma thank you.” My voice cracks on the words. I take the pastry and focus on the luggage. “So how did you know that one belonged to me?”
He sets my navy suitcase upright and fingers the scrap of turquoise fabric tied around the handle. “I noticed you with it at checkin.”
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. Before he found my passport, which disappeared so suspiciously? “Was I a mark?”
I expect a flippant pun about him being the Mark here.
He shoots me a quick look I can’t read. “The airline lady at the counter was having a rotten day and you made her laugh. She was much more pleasant with the rest of us than all the people in line before you. That’s all.”
I was not prepared for that honesty. It’ll take an hour of processing to know how to respond. At least.
He yanks the handle of his suitcase and heads for the door. “Bye, Lexington.”
My hand clenches, crinkling the cannolo’s wax paper. He keeps using that name. It’s too personal and tender for someone who wishes I was a continent away.
“It’s Lexi,” I remind him, but he’s already out the door.
Content taken from The Roman Holiday Rule by Andra Loy, ©2026. Used by permission of Haven Fiction.
