In addition to /u/Orel_Beilinson recommendations and to expand on the previous answers linked by /u/voyeur324 - and also given your focus - I think I may add a few words.

I'm primarily interested in the ideology of fascism, how fascists gained state power, and what actual day to day life was like for people in fascist Italy and occupied territories and less interested in military centered history.

First, I have good news for you, since traditional historiography on Italian Fascism has consistently overlooked military matters (partly due to the fact that military archives became accessible much later than private and administration ones, and partly because military matters were regarded as a quite miserable but scarcely consequential portion in the trajectory of Italian Fascism). Even then, given the comparatively limited scope of Italian operations during WW2, you are more likely to encounter "political" approaches to military matters; that is attempts at connecting military-related policies and practices with the ideological and strategic aims of the Regime. A first author to investigate the relations between the military and the practices of Italian colonialism - for instance - was G. Rochat. You'll find similar connections drawn in Kallis' works; and, often more explicitly, in McGregor Knox's.

That, said - if you aren't looking for military history - then you are looking for the remaining 99% of historiography on Italian Fascism, which is a lot.

Reluctant as one might be to approach more technical matters, I would suggest that you consider one of the many publications on the state of historiography on "generic fascism"; at least as an introductory survey. There really isn't a work on Italian Fascism as a whole that can be recommended as a stand-alone treatment.

Among those, especially with a main interest in "ideology", I would suggest two volumes, edited by Costa-Pinto and Kallis:

Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe and Rethinking the Nature of Fascism.

For a single-voice introduction, various authors have attempted to paint a picture of "generic fascism" which includes elements from Italian Fascism within the general framework:

Griffin's The Nature of Fascism - Payne's A History of Fascism - Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism - all offer a somewhat different interpretive angle.

Also, a classic and influential - albeit somewhat controversial - treatment of the origins of fascist ideology, is Sternhell's Naissance de l'idéologie fasciste. Which offers an in depth survey of the ideological elements of fascism "before fascism" (even if I don't agree with Sternhell's conclusion that a "fascist ideology" was formed already before the Great War in a meaningful sense). A brief survey of the debate over Sternhell's interpretation is given by Costa-Pinto (Fascism ideology revisited).

For Italian Fascism in particular, the original treatment is Emilio Gentile's first major work Le origini dell'ideologia fascista (1975), which should be available in a more recent English translation. There are connections - beyond the publication date - between Gentile's work and Mosse's innovative take on Fascism and its ideological and cultural foundations (I would not recommend you start with Mosse, but his work is still relevant to current historiography of Fascism).

Some recommendations (* - not written primarily for academics):

Must read - Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922-1945 and The Perfect Fascist*; Ruth Ben Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945; Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919-1945 and Liberal and Fascist Italy: 1900-1945; Christopher Duggan, Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy; R J B Bosworth, Mussolini's Italy: Life under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945*; Emilio Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy

Also good - Jorge Dagnino, Faith and Fascism: Catholic Intellectuals in Italy, 1925–43; Caroline Moorehead, The Women who Liberated Italy from Fascism*; Shira Klein, Italy's Jews from emancipation to Fascism; Victoria de Grazia, The Culture of Consent: Mass Organization of Leisure in Fascist Italy; Robert Mallett, Mussolini in Ethiopia, 1919–1935: The Origins of Fascist Italy’s African War; John Gooch, Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse, 1935-1943*; Barbara Spackman, Fascist Virilities: Rhetoric, Ideology, and Social Fantasy in Italy; Stephen Gundle, Mussolini’s Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy

For a more comparative look - Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919-1945; Dylan Reily, The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, 1870-1945; Alexander J. de Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: The 'Fascist' Style of Rule; Aristotle Kallis, Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922-1945 Reto Hofmann, The Fascist Effect: Japan and Italy, 1915–1952

Perhaps too specialized but a cool story: Gabriella Romano, The Pathologisation of Homosexuality in Fascist Italy: The Case of 'G'

/u/Klesk_vs_Xaero has previously answered What is considered the best book on Mussolini as a dictator? and offered guidance on how to research Italian fascism as an undergraduate.