The Echoes of Love is a
touching love story that unfolds at the turn of the new millennium, set in the
romantic and mysterious city of Venice and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany.
It is a tale of a lost love and betrayal, unbleached passion and learning to
love again – and a terrible truth that will change the lives of two strangers
forever.
Venetia Aston-Montagu has escaped to
Italy’s most captivating city to work in her godmother’s architectural
practice, putting a lost love behind her. For the past ten years she has built
a fortress around her heart, only to find the walls tumbling down one night of
the carnival when she is rescued from masked assailants by an enigmatic stranger, Paolo
Barone.
Drawn to the powerfully seductive Paolo,
despite warnings of his Don Juan reputation and rumours that he keeps a
mistress, Venetia can’t help being caught up in the smouldering passion that
ignites between them.
When she finds herself assigned to a project at his magnificent home deep in
the Tuscan countryside, Venetia must not only contend with a beautiful young
rival, but also come face to face with the dark shadows of Paolo’s past that
threaten to come between them.
Can Venetia trust that love will triumph,
even over her own demons? Or will Paolo’s carefully guarded, devastating secret
tear them apart forever?
The author
Hannah Fielding is an incurable romantic.
The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt,
when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story
Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later –
following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe,
falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a
career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning
to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: writing full time
at her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up
romances overlooking breath-taking views of the Mediterranean.
To date, Hannah has published four novels: Burning Embers, ‘romance like Hollywood
used to make’, set in Kenya; the award-winning Echoes of Love, ‘an epic love story that is beautifully told’ set
in Italy; and Indiscretion and Masquerade (from the Andalusian Nights
Trilogy), her fieriest novels yet. She is currently working on her forthcoming
book, Legacy, the final title in the
trilogy, which is due to be published in spring 2016.
The excerpt
It was nearly seven-thirty and the
shops were beginning to shut down for the night. The wind that had blown all
day had dropped, and a slight haze veiled the trees, as if gauze had been hung
in front of everything that was more than a few feet away. The damp air was
soaked with silence.
Venetia tightened the
belt of her coat around her slim waist and lifted the fur collar snugly about
her neck. The sound of her footsteps echoed off the pavement as she hurried
towards the Rialto Bridge from Piazza San Marco, a solitary figure in an almost
deserted street. She was on her way to catch the vaporetto water bus, which would drop her off at Palazzo Mendicoli
where she had an apartment. A few huddled pedestrians could be seen on the
opposite pavement, and there was not much traffic on the great inky stretch of
water of the Grand Canal.
Suddenly Venetia saw two
figures spring out in front of her from the surrounding darkness. They were
enveloped in carnevale cloaks, with
no visible faces, only a spooky blackness where they should have been. A hand
materialised from under the all-encompassing wrap of one of the sinister
creatures and grabbed at her bag. Chilled to the bone, Venetia tried to scream
but the sound froze in her throat. Struggling, she hung onto the leather pouch
which was looped over her shoulder and across her front as she tried to lift
her knee to kick him in the groin, but her aggressors were prepared. An arm was
thrown around her throat from the back and the second figure produced a knife.
Just as he was going to
slash at the strap of her bag, an imposing silhouette emerged from nowhere and
with startling speed its owner swung at Venetia’s attacker with his fist,
knocking him off balance. With a grunt of pain the man fell backwards, tripping
over his accomplice who gave a curse, and they both tumbled to the ground.
Then, picking themselves up in a flash, they took to their heels and fled into
the hazy gloom.
‘Va tutto bene, are you alright?’ The stranger’s light baritone
voice broke through Venetia’s disoriented awareness, and he looked down
anxiously into her large amber eyes.
‘Yes, yes, I think so,’
she panted, her hands going to her throat.
‘Are you hurt at all?’
‘No, no just a little
shaken, thank you.’
‘You’re shivering.
You’ve had a bad shock and you need a warm drink. Come. There’s a caffeteria that serves the best hot
chocolate in Venice, just a few steps from here. It’ll do you good.’ Without
waiting for a response, he took Venetia’s arm and led the way down the narrow
street.
Venetia’s knees felt
like jelly and her teeth were chattering. ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, still trying
to catch her breath, her heart pounding, and let herself be guided by her tall,
broad-shouldered rescuer, who seemed to have taken the situation into his
hands.
Thus does Fate cast her
thunderbolts into our lives, letting them fall with a feather-like touch,
dulling our senses to the storm they would cause should we realise their
devastating powers.
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