Choosing a favourite scene from my debut novel The Italian Holiday was rather like choosing a favourite pasta sauce or flavour of Italian gelati – impossible not to keep changing my mind! My unlucky-in-love heroine, Bluebell has always wanted to visit Italy but taking her granny’s place on Loving and Knitting magazine’s trip isn’t quite what she had in mind. When she realises she has picked up the wrong suitcase at Naples airport, Bluebell is horrified – until she discovers the colourful, confidence boosting dresses inside fit like a glove.
Bluebell and her unlikely new pals stay at the fictional Hotel Sea Breeze in Minori, a charming seaside town just along the coast from Amalfi. I first visited Minori in 2015, and my then-boyfriend and I loved it so much we ‘eloped’ there to get married two years later. Exploring the area whilst on honeymoon, I knew that it would make the perfect setting for a story of unusual friendships, finding love when you least expect it – and how the right dress can change your life.
My protagonists explore the gardens in Ravello, take a boat trip to Positano and visit unforgettable Capri but I have chosen a day trip to Sorrento, in the first part of the book, as my favourite scene. The women are up early ‘despite their late night dancing on the seafront’ and assemble ‘by the reception desk, chatting away, clutching a mixture of sun hats and cardigans just in case the fine June day turned out to be too hot or too cold.’ Bluebell and her new friend, 72-year-old Miriam, holidaying abroad for the first time since her husband’s death, swap stories at the back of the coach whilst little Evie is busy with her ‘top-secret knitting project.’
When the guide they are due to meet in Sorrento is taken ill, down-to-earth Brenda comes to the rescue and leads the others on her own tour, exploring the via San Cesareo where ‘boxes of soft peaches and oversized knobbly lemons were piled up beneath canopies hung with waxy red chillies…Italian mothers bargained with stall holders and remonstrated with recalcitrant children. Overhead, strings of colourful flags criss-crossed the narrow street.’ Down in the marina, they feast on ‘bruschette fragrant with oil and garlic, topped by the brightest chopped tomatoes with shredded basil…peppers and aubergines cooked until they were soft and velvety.’
The women, near strangers until now, begin to gel and the reader gets a hint of the adventures that lie ahead. Spotting a wedding in the cloisters where the glamorous outfits are a far cry from ‘the sturdy pastel two-pieces worn at a typical English wedding for fear of upstaging the bride,’ Bluebell wonders if she is quite as cynical about love as she likes to think she is. Meanwhile Miriam gets a ‘faraway look in her eyes’ perhaps thinking of handsome Tommaso who runs Minori’s Trattoria di Napoli where the women ate the previous night.
After their busy day in Sorrento, the ladies are looking forward to an early night except for Bluebell who has a date with ‘tight-trousered’ hotel waiter Andrea. Bluebell plans to wear a special outfit from the mystery suitcase: ‘the prettiest dress of them all.’ Later that evening, the ‘orange, full-skirted number covered in big white poppies’ will attract the attention of an intriguing young man, sending Bluebell and Miriam on the trail of the mysterious girl in the poppy-print dress.
The Italian Holiday and A Farmhouse in Tuscany are published by Orion Dash. Victoria’s new book, set in Lucca, The Italian Fiancé is out August 2022.
Twitter: @VictoriaSWrites