EXCERPT and GIVEAWAY
Love Spirits
(What Happens in Venice Book 1)
(What Happens in Venice Book 1)
by Diana Cachey
Love Spirits is the first in Diana Cachey's What Happens in Venice trinity. Coming soon: Lagoon Lure and Magic Island. Love Spirits is currently on tour with Bewitching Book Tours. The tour stops here today for an excerpt and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Among the romantic canals of Venice - and oh so many Italian distractions - can a stunning American lawyer and her psychic sister help the Ghosts of Venice solve a hushed-up crime?
Louisa Mangotti is a gorgeous American lawyer and Interpol expert who, after being offered a job working with the international crime unit in Venice, receives a mysterious postcard from the Venetian Ghosts, the ancient protectors of the Republic. But Louisa assumes her bad-boy ex, Matteo, sent it in a quixotic attempt to gain her attention. Louisa may have dismissed the ghosts, but the ghosts aren’t quite done with her.
When the bodies of two glassmakers wash up on Murano Island, the cryptic messages persist. Reluctantly, Louisa calls upon Matteo to help decipher the clues. And before she knows it, a flame that was never fully extinguished is rekindled. Sensing that her sister is in over her head, Barbara Mangotti rushes to the rescue, only to be lured away by two handsome Venetian men.
With time running out, can the two beauties solve a crime that could threaten the city of Venice itself?
Book Video
Excerpt
Flights, hotels, apartments. Clothes, jewelry, shoes. Check, check, check. She’d tried on sweaters, jeans, jackets, surveyed each item to determine the most Italian look and picked only the most flattering combinations. She lined up toiletries, stockings, scarves, lingerie and make-up, but not too much, she’d buy better stuff in Italy. Cat sitters were called to assess availability and suitability. Processed food was sneered at in grocery stores for savoring of fresh Venetian produce. The voluntary time-off she scoffed at months earlier when offered it, turned out to be a perk, not a temporary discharge due to shortage of work. For Barbara, getting to Venice was easy. Finding ghosts in Venice? Harder. Fetching Louisa and releasing Matteo’s grip? Impossibile.
Louisa would scheme and stick until everyone else became unglued. If ghosts were to be found, Louisa would find them. Barbara hadn’t stopped Louisa from going to Venice so how would she get her home? Investigate the ghosts, disprove their existence? Barbara imagined her own escape into those Venetian palaces, their moldy facades toppling into canals. Those quiet evenings with no traffic, strolling along sea water, visiting quaint bars or vegetable markets that hugged tiny bridges. Foggy thoughts of Venice led Barbara to recall how Louisa had written her about a fall, not into the arms of Matteo, but into a canal. She’d slipped on the algae-coated steps leading into a traghetto that ferries passengers across the Grand Canal and the only gondolas still in regular use by Venetians. This traghetto was her daily ride to work, so exposed algae didn’t concern her. Yet, one day she’d been unable to maintain her balance long enough to avoid the dive. She’d fallen into the drink, straight out of the helpful hand of the gondolier, with her expensive Italian boots, cell phone and all.
“Venetians rallied so fast,” she’d written to Barbara, “that my shoulders barely touched the water when they lifted me out of the canal as easily as a floating plastic bag.” Her Venetian rescuers assured Louisa that all self-respecting residents fell into canals at some point in their lives. She’d been baptized, Venetian-style. The young gondolier, feeling somewhat responsible for not holding her securely enough, made up for it by embracing her tightly. With both arms, he enveloped Louisa in his goose down parka and rubbed her wet body vigorously and lovingly. Barbara smiled as she sensed Louisa’s presence deep in her heart, thousands of miles across the pond - as was the Atlantic Ocean referred to by jet-setters like Louisa. Don’t fall in again, dear one, Barbara quietly prayed, until I get there. She tried sending those words to Louisa, knowing not whether they fell onto her sister’s distant ears.
Featured Review
This is an outstanding first book (it is the first in a trilogy though, so more to come!) by a Venetian expert and thoughtful storyteller. Part travelogue (no boring day-tripping cruiser itinerary: this is the real hidden-Venice deal), part mystery, ALL steamy stuff. I was expecting the steamy mystery judging from the book's synopsis, but was pleasantly surprised by the Venetian language and history lessons. The author really gets into it and we, the reader, are better off for the inclusion.
The characters are believable and we are drawn into each of their worlds (even the sinister ones!). Diana keeps you on your toes throughout the novel and leaves you wanting more. Can't wait for due and tre!
About the Author
Diana Cachey is a licensed attorney, published academic, and former adjunct law professor. She also holds a BA in English, and while in law school, she was the first female editor-in-chief of her university’s law review. The author of the novel Love Spirits, she has trained with several New York Times best-selling writers, including Robert Allen, with more than seventy-two million books sold. For more than a decade, Cachey has been traveling to Venice, the setting of her novel, on extended trips several times a year. The cafés, restaurants, and many other haunts of Venice play a prominent role in her sexy paranormal mystery-romance about a beautiful American lawyer guided by the Ghosts of Venice in the investigation of a hushed-up crime.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win one of three prize packs with a signed book and custom beaded bookmark (US only).
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