Welcome to another Weekend Read. This week’s featured book is the romantic novel, A Venice Summer by popular romance author Lynne Shelby. Lynne has dropped by to tell us more about her book and her writing life. So grab a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Lynne.
Blurb
Art conservator Rose Bennet is still reeling from a bad break-up when she is offered a dream job in Venice, restoring an art collection in the Ca’ D’Ambra, a six-hundred-year-old Venetian palazzo. Despite her fears about travelling to a foreign country on her own, Rose is soon heading to Italy for the summer.
While she is awestruck by the breathtaking beauty of Venice, Rose finds the owner of the palazzo, the arrogant and short-tempered Luca Casserini, insufferable. When he questions her ability to do her work, she almost heads straight back to London, but decides that she won’t let herself be intimidated or driven away before she’s even had a chance to ride in a gondola.
Losing her way in Venice’s picturesque maze of canals and alleyways, the last person Rose wants to see is Luca, but when they meet by chance and, to her surprise, he offers to show her around the city, she feels it would be churlish to refuse.
Spending sunlit summer days exploring Venice with Luca, Rose discovers a passionate side to him, very different to her first impression, and her feelings towards him begin to change …
Rose knows she can restore a damaged painting, but can she mend Luca’s damaged heart?
Buy Link:
A Venice Summer: a sunlit summer romance eBook : Shelby, Lynne: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
Welcome to my blog, Lynne. Can you tell my readers what inspired you to write this book?
I’m often asked where I get the ideas for my books. The answer is that a book can be inspired by almost anything, from an overheard conversation on a train to an old photograph, or a romantic location, like a beautiful city that my heroine and hero can explore hand-in-hand.
The first spark of an idea for the story that was to become my latest novel, A Venice Summer, came to me when me and my husband were visiting Venice, which I think is probably the most beautiful city in the world.
We’d taken a vaporetto along the Grand Canal, one of the best ways to see Venice, and I was awestruck by the elegant palazzi that lined the banks on either side, exquisitely beautiful in different shades of terracotta, pink and russet, their ornate facades built right on the water. I knew they’d once been the homes and workplaces of the ruling families of Venice, but most of them were now hotels or museums, and this got me thinking about what it would be like to still own and live in one of these palazzi, especially if it had been handed down the generations since it was first built back in the Renaissance.
Later that day, exploring Venice, getting lost in its labyrinth of canals and narrow alleyways, I decided it would make the perfect location for a romantic novel in which an English girl, on holiday in Venice, gets lost and is rescued by . . . the Venetian owner of a palazzo. And he would offer to show her around Venice . . .
The next day, we visited a palazzo, now an art gallery, once the home of Venetian nobility, and as soon as I walked in and saw the paintings on the walls and the view of the Grand Canal from the balcony on the first floor, I knew that this was where my hero lived!
It was on another day, when we were visiting a church to see a famous panting and discovered it being restored and covered in scaffolding that I had the idea that instead of being a tourist, my heroine would be an art conservator, employed to restore a painting in the art collection of the palazzo-owner. She would then be able to stay in Venice for the whole summer, rather than just for a holiday. At first, she’d find the palazzo owner overbearing and arrogant, but as he shows her the city he loves – visiting places like the Doge’s Palace or the Accademia art gallery, as I’d done myself – her feelings for him would begin to change.
I now had the faint outline of the book that was to become A Venice Summer, inspired by the beautiful city of Venice.
And, very soon after I was back home in England, the characters of art conservator Rose Bennet and palazzo-owner Luca Casserini rocked up in my head demanding that I tell their story.
How fascinating, Lynne. I love Venice, such a beautiful, romantic city. Thank you for dropping by to talk to us today. I hope your book soars.
Meet Lynne
Author Bio
Lynne Shelby writes contemporary and dual-timeline women’s fiction/romance. Her debut novel, ‘Meet Me In Paris,’ (originally titled French Kissing), won the Accent Press and Woman magazine Writing Competition, and her fifth novel, Love On Location, was shortlisted for a Romantic Novelists’ Award. When not writing or reading, Lynne can usually be found at the theatre or exploring a foreign city, writer’s notebook and sketchbook in hand. She lives in London with her husband, and has three adult children who live nearby.
Contact Links
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LynneShelbyWriter
Instagram: @lynneshelbywriter
Threads: @lynneshelbywriter
Twitter: @LynneShelby5
Website: www.lynneshelby.com
More of Lynne’s books
Karen King 