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?
Title: A Venice Summer
Author: Lynne Shelby
Publication Date: 12th May 2026
Published By: Shaldo Books
Our Review
I really don't know where to begin with this review because I just loved the book so much.
Lynne Shelby is such a talented writer and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Venice in the pages of this book.
Having already been to Venice I recognised alot of the places that were mentioned but had you not already been there then I think you would easily see them in your imagination as the descriptions are so vividly described and beautifully written.
When Rose's life falls apart she finds herself in Venice for the summer to restore a renaissance painting for a friend of a friend.
That friend turns out to be one of the most influential men in Venice and he also happens to be a sexy hunk of a man too.
Whilst he is surly at first Rose soon warms to him but always at the back of her mind is the warning from their mutual friend Dario that he is a womaniser who will never settle down because he had his fingers burned in the past.
Rose has to decide whether she is happy with a fling for the summer because that's all he can offer.
Then comes the lovely surprise in the book as we are taken back to the 1500's where we find out who the mysterious girl is in the painting that Rose is restoring. Her name is Marietta and her story is heartbreaking yet beautiful.
I loved everything about this book, the emotions, the story, all the details about restoring the painting and the two love stories one from the past and the other from the present. I can really imagine this book as a film that I would love to watch and I just know it would give me goosebumps just like the book did at the end of Chapter 31.
Two beautifully written love stories cleverly entwined through an exquisite renaissance painting of a girl in a stunning blue satin dress.
Sincerely
Book Angel x
About the Author
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.
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