The Mediterranean Herbalist

When I first walked into an Erboristeria in Umbria, Italy, I stood there with my mouth open. One wall was stocked from floor to ceiling with glass jars filled with every herb you could imagine. I didn’t know it then, but that moment was the beginning of everything you’re reading now.

The Mediterranean Herbalist is part memoir, part herbal medicine guide. It’s the book I wished I’d had when I was nineteen years old, newly diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, sitting in a library trying to figure out how to heal myself without destroying my thyroid. It’s the book I wished I’d had when I was clearing systemic candida on my own because no doctor could tell me how. And it’s the book I wish every person had on their shelf when they get sick, get scared, and want to know what their options are before reaching for a prescription.

This book covers the herbs that Hippocrates and Dioscorides used in their own practices, herbs that still grow wild in the mountains and fields around my home in Greece. Each herb profile includes its energetics, identification, historical usage, preparations, dosing, and precautions. But this isn’t a dry reference guide. Every chapter is grounded in real stories from my life and my practice, because I believe the best way to learn about plants is through the people who use them.

How to set up your own herbal medicine cabinet, even on a budget. How to identify, harvest, and prepare herbs safely. Herbal profiles for respiratory health, digestive healing, sleep and stress, hormones, skin conditions, concentration, detox, and energy. Recipes for medicines you can make in your kitchen with ingredients you can grow or find nearby. And the food-as-medicine philosophy that has kept Mediterranean families healthy for generations.

I wrote this book because too many herbal books are either written for practitioners or by AI. I wanted to bridge that gap with something real, something grounded in experience, and something that anyone can pick up and use. Whether you have a garden or a windowsill, whether you live in Greece or in a city apartment, you can work with these plants.

About the Author

Brenda Grate is an author, herbalist, and book designer living in the Mani, southern Greece. She has spent more than twenty years writing and publishing, writing her own novels, ghostwriting books for other people, and helping authors turn manuscripts into finished books.

Her fiction follows women who find their voices and the courage to rewrite their lives. Her latest book, The Mediterranean Herbalist: Stories and Herbal Remedies from Italy and Greece, draws on years of learning plants where they grow and listening to the people who still remember how they’d been used.

Born in Santa Rosa, California, Brenda spent most of her adult life in Western Canada, where she raised and homeschooled four children and supported other writers through the Interior Author’s Group. Then she took her own advice about brave leaps of faith, and moved to Greece with her husband.

A certified herbalist and holistic health coach, she shares her herbal work at Mugwort & Meadow. When she isn’t writing, she’s foraging wild herbs, painting Mediterranean landscapes, or being thoroughly managed by her cats, Diego and Puccini, who insist on supervising every chapter.

Brenda speaks Italian and Sign Language and is learning Greek, sigá sigá.

Read more about me

The Mediterranean Herbalist has been published by Book Shelter. I’ll share updates, excerpts, and behind-the-scenes looks at the process through my newsletter and social media. If you’d like more stories from my life in Greece, seasonal herbalism, recipes, remedies, and news about my books, you can join me through Herbal Letters.