Book Extract: Coincidentally in Venice by Kate Zarrelli

I’m happy to be welcoming Kate Zarrelli to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for her book, Coincidentally in Venice.

Best friends Ashley and Juliet, who’ve been made redundant from their marketing jobs during Covid, at last get to go to Venice. The long days of lockdown were made a little easier by looking at webcams of the deserted city. One day, Ash spied a man walking his dog in Campo Santa Maria Formosa. What would happen if she were to meet him for real?

Though Jules hits it off with a handsome waiter, and both girls take the opportunity to think through big career changes, things otherwise don’t go quite according to plan. And why is it that boring Joe from Accounts keeps turning up where he’s not supposed to be? Only, whoever falls in love with Venice won’t stay boring for long, and Joe unwittingly finds himself at the centre of a trade in faked artworks.

Coincidentally in Venice is a joyous celebration of love, friendship, vintage clothes to die for, Prosecco and spaghetti alle vongole. Oh, and not to mention a stolen gondola, a dog called Killer, ten thousand fictitious virgins and an old Grateful Dead t-shirt.

Kate has shared an extract with us today. We hope you enjoy. 

*****beginning of extract*****

It’s April 2022 and best friends Ashley and Juliet are at last able to take their postponed holiday to Venice. In the silent days of lockdown, both girls had feasted their eyes on webcams of the deserted city. In a lonely square, Ashley had spotted a solitary man exercising his dog. Never one to miss an opportunity, Juliet urged her friend to go to that square to get a look at him close up…

*****

Close up the waiter really was worth looking at, even with his nose and mouth covered by the regulation mask. He was slender. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing golden skin and silky dark hairs Ash wanted to reach up and stroke. A little badge bore the name Davide. Ash remembered that in Italian every syllable was pronounced. She rehearsed saying it in her head: Dah-vi-deh.

‘Il nome è Ashworth,’ pronounced Juliet carefully.

‘Oh yes. You booked,’ he said, in nearly unaccented English. ‘Your table is here. You’ll find the menu with this Q-R code,’ he added, indicating a laminated little square. ‘Or I could just tell you…’

‘Oh yes, just tell us. It’s so good to deal with a real human. What does vongole veraci mean?’

Ash saw his eyes smile. ‘It means they are unique, the only one. An Italian clam. In this case freshly gathered from the Venetian lagoon. You wish spaghetti alle vongole?’

‘I do,’ said Juliet. ‘Ash?’

‘Same for me,’ said Ash, wishing her blush would subside.

‘And to drink?’

 Prosecco? And we’d better have some water. One still, one sparking, Ash?’

Ash nodded, still trying to pull herself together.

‘Of course,’ said Davide. ‘Ladies, if there is anything else you want, just wave to me.’

‘He wouldn’t need to say that twice,’ muttered Juliet, as the waiter moved away.

Ash thought he probably wouldn’t either. Davide had been polite to both of them, but she had clocked how his brown eyes kept turning back to Juliet. She suffocated a twinge of jealousy, reminding herself that they had come here, to this square, to find the man with the dog for her. And didn’t the best friend in the world deserve a handsome waiter? Especially, she thought as she watched him disappear into the restaurant, one with such an appealing bum.

‘I like his arse,’ whispered Juliet.

‘He likes you,’ said Ash.

‘This is meltingly good,’ said Ash. ‘The spaghetti is just al dente and the clams do taste real. They taste of the sea.’

Juliet lifted the bottle out of the clinking ice bucket and refilled their glasses.

‘I could live like this,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ sighed Ash. Good food, the dryness of the sparkling cold wine against her palate and being with her bestie in the most beautiful city in the world were starting to have their effect. It was as if she could feel herself uncoil. True, Covid still lurked in the shadows. Masks had to be worn on the vaporetto and in shops – the smaller ones obliged customers to wait outside. She knew museums would require them to show their vaccination certificates, but in every sense Ash felt she could breathe more easily. Residual caution and pre-travel testing meant that Venice was not as busy as she had thought it might be. She was relieved they’d decided to come now. When all restrictions were relaxed Venice might turn into a bear garden. She also realised that if they never even saw Dog Man, it mightn’t even matter that much. She was going to have a great time anyway.

Then Juliet said, ‘Well, you might get to live here. Which door is Dog Man’s?’

‘There. Right opposite,’ she said, pointing across the square.

‘What, that posh palace where they’ve put the lights on deliberately so’s we can see in and be jealous?’

‘No. I think it’s the normal looking building next door. The one with three doorbells. You can only really see the edge of those houses on the webcam.’

‘Have you been watching the doors?’

‘I haven’t, to be honest,’ said Ash. ‘I’ve been too busy trying to eat spaghetti without getting it all down my front. I wouldn’t want him to live in that palace. It’d be just too much like an old-fashioned rags to riches romance.’

‘Well, do you want to hear Baldrick’s cunning plan?’

Before Ash could say, ‘On the way home, maybe,’ Davide reappeared at the table.

‘Would you like anything else, ladies?’

‘I think I’d like just a green salad,’ said Juliet with a virtuous air. ‘Remember what we said about eating healthily after Covid, Ash?’

‘Not a tiramisu, then?’ said Davide.

Ash and Juliet exchanged glances, then Ash said, ‘We’re on holiday. So we’ll have two green salads and afterwards two tiramisus.’

Davide laughed. ‘I like that you are such friends, that you even choose the same food. It must be hard to separate you.’

Ash again noticed that when he spoke he was looking at Juliet. There needs to be a cunning plan for Jules too, not just me. What’s wrong with a holiday romance – or more?

By about ten o’clock they noticed that only one other table was occupied. Ash and Juliet were savouring the digestif they’d been offered on the house, a herby, deliciously bitter concoction Davide said was made from artichokes, ‘against the strain of modern life,’ something that sounded to Ash like a quote. ‘You can drink it also as an aperitif,’ he said. ‘Come at lunch time and try it in the sunshine.’

‘Oh, we’ll definitely come again,’ said Juliet. Ash knew by now that coming back was part of the Cunning Plan that Jules had explained over the tiramisu, but she was glad to see in the look her friend exchanged with the handsome waiter, that there was likely to be a collateral advantage to Juliet too.

Finally, they got up to go. Ash thought for a moment Juliet was going to go on tiptoes and kiss Davide. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d done so with a waiter. But he was already leaning over the table, rolling up the cloth, and gave them only a fond but professional wave.

The girls had almost reached the façade of the church, ambling along arm in arm in the lamplit soft darkness, hearing the gentle lap of water against the hulls of the boats moored in the nearby canal, when they heard Davide’s voice cry out in greeting.

‘Ehì, Gianni! Come va?’

Ash knew what she was going to see before she turned round. There was Davide, their tablecloth still bunched in his hands, standing by the well-head talking to another man.

Around them scuttled a small, excitable dog.

*****end of extract*****

About Kate Zarrelli –

Kate Zarrelli is the romance pen-name of Katherine Mezzacappa, specialising in to die for heroes in lush contemporary Italian settings.

Coincidentally in Venice is her third romance title with Romaunce and her first rom com. Writing as Katie Hutton, she is also the author of four sagas published by Zaffre, and under her own name two literary historical novels.

Say hello via Facebook and X. 

Coincidentally in Venice was released by Romaunce on 30th September 2024. Click here to buy on Amazon, Waterstones and Romaunce.

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I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.