From Venice With Love by Rosanna Ley ARC Review

Hi ForeverBookers,  

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted in what feels like AGES! I’ve been reading my arc copy of “From Venice With Love” by Rosanna Ley, a contemporary novel, which sometimes went rather slowly. It was good, don’t get me wrong but it just didn’t have a real WOW factor for me, until the very end. Hence, why I could only read a certain number of pages a day. It was also very long for what it was. I don’t think it necessarily needed to be so long or that as much detail needed to be given to so many minor aspects! It’s written in an older style, I’d say with continuous, run-on sentences. 

3 Stars!

“From Venice With Love” is an adult novel, as there’s talk of drugs, sex and marriage problems. There aren’t any erotic scenes, as the one time a sexual encounter happens is fade to black but I wouldn’t say it’s appropriate for under 18‘s or certainly under 16’s to read. The story is set around a woman’s quest to find answers to a mystery she uncovers at her older sister’s farm, where she used to live, before she met her husband who she’s just broken up with. It’s in the first chapter of the book so it’s not a spoiler. Her marital breakdown is not that central to the plot either. It’s just in the background. 

I read “From Venice With Love” for a few readathons, which were:

Reading Rivalry - Path to self acceptance - Both of the main female characters in this novel need to find themselves. One has just lost her husband as I say above while the other needs to learn to accept that life sometimes throws your curveballs but it’s what you do with those curveballs that matters. 

Fiction Feud Society - Hungry Hippos - Book with orange/pink/purple/green/yellow or shapes on the cover - There’s a yellow house on the cover of “From Venice With Love,” as well as yellow text.

Cardcaptor-a-thon - The Big - Read a book with over 400 pages...my arc copy of “From Venice With Love” has 484 pages! I believe the actual book has slightly less pages at 464 but it’s still over 400 so it counts!

Spoilers Below...

First we follow Joanna, the woman who has lost her husband because of an infidelity on his part. Below is where Martin, the cheat of a husband says he doubts whether they’re relationship is worth it. Joanna is of course questioning what she did wrong. She had no idea of the affair.

“I feel terrible,” he said. He tore his fingers through his fair hair in a familiar gesture. “So guilty. So angry with myself. I can’t sleep, you’ve no idea.”

Was she supposed to feel sorry for him? The anger flooded through her, a release. “Why?” she managed to say. Wasn’t she enough for him, was that it? Didn’t he love her anymore? But the word emerged devoid of emotion. He was right — she’d had no idea.”

Joanna moves to her sister’s, Harriet’s farm very quickly after finding out about Martin’s betrayal. Martin isn’t a main character. He’s very much on the outskirts of the story and is only present, I think two or three times. 

Harriet, Joanna’s sister is a stubborn woman at the start of the novel, who’s only willing to let Joanna part way in. She doesn’t open up to her sister at all in the beginning. Does this change by the end of the novel? You’ll have to read to find out! Harriet is their mother’s sole carer, as Joanna has a career as a journalist in London. She feels as if this is very unjust! Why shouldn’t she have a career? She feels as if life is very unfair on her. This is reflected in, 

“Harriet hadn’t gone to university — unlike Joanna. She had stayed here on the farm looking after things — not only Mother, but also the hens, the pigs, the small orchard...”  

I didn’t like Harriet’s character to begin with but she became more tolerable as the novel went on. I think she’s meant to be disliked to begin with but as we get to know her, she’s meant to become likeable and you’re meant to understand her actions. The above quote is in the second chapter of the novel, the first time we see Harriet. 

Harriet has a keen interest in finding a man. While this did come across as a little desperate at times, I understood why she wanted company. Her life hasn’t been easy as I wrote above. She’s had to deal with a lot to do with her mother, who she doesn’t always see eye to eye with. Agatha, Harriet and Joanna’s mother doesn’t know the effect she has on Harriet. She’s oblivious. We see this in, “Oh Harriet.” Their mother clicked her tongue. “Joanna has her own work to do, remember. She hasn’t come here just to be at your beck and call.” All Harriet is asking for is a little help around the farm. Agatha doesn’t understand just how much work it is looking after that and her as well. Luckily she has Owen, a character I’ll come onto later to help her when times get tough with her mother. 

We see Harriet go on at least two dates through an Online Dating service called “Someone Somewhere” in “From Venice With Love.” One of these dates goes a little further than just the dating stage. Harriet loses her virginity in the novel to a man who smokes weed. That’s where the drug use comes in. She’s 39 years old so it’s proof that you’re only as young as you feel. It was good to have representation for older people and how they can feel lonely and in need of someone special, as I think a lot of contemporary novels just focus on young people. Older people have struggles too. I commend the novel for this.  

The main part of the story starts when Joanna finds letters in Harriet’s and her mother’s attic at the farm. These letters are from a woman called Emmy. Joanna isn’t sure who Emmy is to begin with. As the story unfolds we learn more of  just who Emmy was in history and is today to the people in the story. Emmy was an artist and painted pictures of many bridges around Europe. I enjoyed seeing Joanna’s stroll around these places. It gave a multi-cultural aspect to the story that was well researched. Joanna sees visions of Emmy on her trips to the bridges. This kind of added a fantastical twist but not too much.

“Bridges provided a path forward or back, a connection, a way of avoiding the troubled waters below.

For Joanna, Venice had been a turning point,” signifies just how Joanna feels. She’s ready to get on with her life after being in Venice, and start anew without any restraints holding her back, like Martin or life at the farm.

The novel took us from Dorset, to Venice and to Prague. A complaint I have, that I’ve noticed a few others also have from reviews that I’ve read is that Venice, the place mentioned in the title of the book is only a setting for a short time in the book and not much happens there, so I don’t know why the title wasn’t From Dorset with Love as the majority of the story happens there, in the UK or something to do with Mulberry trees as that’s a big part of one of the storylines later in the book. I don’t want to spoil the mulberry trees part, which it’s pretty key to the story as it’s linked to the history or Emmy and the present day of the farm. 

The other main characters are both men. They both play a significant role but the bulk of the story is portrayed through Joanna and Harriet’s actions. The men are called Owen, who I mentioned earlier, a farmer who owns the farm next to Mulberry Cottage, where most of the Dorset scenes are set and Nicholas, a man that gets in contact with Joanna after he reads her articles on the bridge walks she completes. He’s also a keen traveller. Nicholas can see the same visions that Joanna sees of Emmy. This links them. I was a little let down that we never saw Nicholas actually meet Joanna. Yes, we saw his thoughts in his emails to Joanna, and him by himself or with his daughter, from a failed marriage, Celie, but we never got to see who I considered the main couple meet. It was brought up a couple of times about them meeting but it never actually happened. I think “From Venice With Love” is a standalone novel so we won’t see anymore from the characters or their stories. 

The love story that we do see happens right at the end but it does slowly progress throughout. I’m not really a fan of slow progression love stories. I prefer it when a couple gets together and things happen rather quickly, which I know is a very unpopular opinion. I just don’t like the faffing about, I guess. In the case of “From Venice With Love” they get together at the end and that’s it. We don’t see any progression. That’s what I like to see in a fictional relationship.

There are a few surprises that I was taken aback by. I didn’t think they were necessarily needed. If they’d been taken out then the novel would have been at least a little bit shorter and more satisfactory to me, also. The main part I think should have been condensed or removed all together was the reveal of who the prowler, as their known for most of the story. The prowler comes into “From Venice With Love” when Harriet is getting ready for bed one night. She can see them from her window. I didn’t like how the end just seemed to add on the reveal. The novel would have been fine for me if the prowler had just been someone random, better in fact, as it would have probably been solved within a chapter. 

There was a little bit of romance, as I noted above, which I enjoyed but not between who I thought, and what there was was certainly overshadowed by family drama, which I wasn’t all that keen on. Therefore I’m giving “From Venice With Love” 3 stars. As I said above, I didn’t hate it but there could have been more done with the story and less focus should have been given to certain elements in my eyes. We didn’t get answers for everything I don’t think.  

“From Venice With Love” by Rosanna Ley is now available to buy. 

Stand by for my next review coming soon...