One Summer In Italy by Sue Moorcroft: Extract

One Summer In Italy by Sue Moorcroft

Release Date: 17th May 2018
Publisher: Avon

Genres: Women's Fiction 

When Sofia Bianchi’s father Aldo dies, it makes her stop and look at things afresh. Having been his carer for so many years, she knows it’s time for her to live her own life – and to fulfil some promises she made to Aldo in his final days.

So there’s nothing for it but to escape to Italy’s Umbrian mountains where, tucked away in a sleepy Italian village, lie plenty of family secrets waiting to be discovered. There, Sofia also finds Amy who is desperately trying to find her way in life after discovering her dad isn’t her biological father.

Sofia sets about helping Amy through this difficult time, but it’s the handsome Levi who proves to be the biggest distraction for Sofia, as her new life starts to take off…

EXTRACT

Hooray! Davide was on a rest day when Sofia returned to Il Giardino the next day, Wednesday. She and Amy were both on the lunch shift and alongside them was Paolo, a middle-aged man who made ends meet with shifts at Casa Felice on his days off from a bar in town. Paolo was stooped like a man thirty years older and walked as if treading hot coals.

Paolo got section two, which contained one table fewer than either of the other sections. Although Sofia felt a bit mutinous when Davide continually allotted himself section two, she didn’t mind Paolo getting it because a bloke who worked seven days a week deserved a break, however meagre. Amy was on section three, nearest the car park, and Sofia section one, close to the clatter of the kitchen hatch.

What made that interesting today was that Levi was crammed in a shady corner of Il Giardino beside the hatch, a board-backed pad propped across his lap and a box of paints and two little jars of water on a stool beside him.

It was hard to see what he was doing because she had no reason to be in the hatch area unless clearing crocks or an order was called for tables one to nineteen, when she’d whizz up to sweep up a tray of food and hurry to deliver it to whichever hungry customers awaited.

‘Hello,’ she greeted Levi the first time she arrived, conscious of the tetchy end to their last encounter but curious about the paints and pad.

He returned her greeting politely but with no smile.