Blog Tour - Wedding Bells at Villa Limoncello

Publication date 11th March 2019

Amazon UK

About the book

Escape to Villa Limoncello… where dreams come true in unexpected ways. Perfect for fans of Sarah Morgan, Jenny Oliver and Kat French

When Isabella Jenkins is unceremoniously fired from her fancy London job, she escapes to Tuscany. A few weeks hiding amongst rolling hills and grape vines at Villa Limoncello sounds exactly like the distraction she needs.
But Italy holds emotional memories for Izzy and with a hapless handyman, a matchmaking village matriarch and a gorgeous – if infuriating – local chef named Luca Castelotti, her quiet Italian get away turns into an unending cacophony of chaos.
Suddenly Izzie finds herself on a mission to pull off the wedding of the century and maybe get her life in order in the process. If only Luca’s gorgeous smile wasn’t such a powerful distraction…

About the Author
Daisy James is a Yorkshire girl transplanted to the north east of England. She loves writing stories with strong heroines and swift-flowing plotlines. When not scribbling away in her summerhouse, she spends her time sifting flour and sprinkling sugar and edible glitter. She loves gossiping with friends over a glass of something pink and fizzy or indulging in a spot of afternoon tea – china plates and teacups are a must.

Author Photos:

Twitter: @daisyjamesbooks

Extract from Wedding Bells at Villa Limoncello

A tiny flat in Clapham
Colour: Raincloud Grey
Izzie had no idea how long she remained on that sofa in the sterile living room of what would be the last house she staged for Hambleton Homes, staring into oblivion like a gobsmacked goldfish – long enough for her bottom to turn numb, though. Eventually, she managed to pull herself together, lock the front door and drop the key through the letterbox, as per Darren’s instructions, mentally crossing off the final box on her checklist.
As she tossed her suitcase into the boot of her sunshine-yellow Fiat 500, one of the few items she still owned from her previous life, she cast her eyes down the street towards the bright lights of the restaurants and bars welcoming in the exhausted office workers desperate for an injection of alcohol before braving the commute home. Despite growing up in the bucolic countryside of Cornwall, she was still able to appreciate the beauty of the capital’s urban architecture, but that night its splendour went unnoticed because her head was spinning with a kaleidoscope of worries.
What was she going to do?
She decided that the last thing she wanted was to share her predicament with Jonti and Meghan. What had happened was not their fault and she didn’t want her woes to spoil their Friday night celebrations. She jumped into the driver’s seat and joined the rush hour traffic, edging at a snail’s pace towards the top-floor apartment she called home. Using the techniques that she’d learned when her business and relationship had failed, she managed to corral her emotions and resume control.
 Control was good. Routine was good.
Only by adhering to a rigid routine, treading carefully, living as quietly and unobtrusively as she could, was she able to make it through to the end of each day. So, she got up at the same time every morning, dressed in the same Hambleton Homes T-shirt and hoodie, grabbed a flat white from the same coffee shop at the end of the road, and turned up at the designated property to stage another one of Hambleton Homes’ clinical white boxes. Then, she would return home to her meticulously neat apartment – devoid of any personality or reminders of the past – and feast on a pile of buttered toast and another coffee, or, if she was feeling particularly indulgent, a bacon sandwich and a glass of inexpensive fizz, before pulling her duvet over her head and starting the whole process again the next day.
Over an hour later, Izzie arrived at her building feeling as if she’d just stepped from a ride on a rollercoaster – dazed, disorientated and a little nauseous. After the day she’d had, she wasn’t surprised that there were no free parking bays and she spent another twenty minutes circling the streets until she spotted a miniscule space that took all her skill and concentration to reverse into. She wrestled her trunk from the boot, pulled on her hoodie, and began the lengthy walk back to her flat.
A splash of rain landed on the back of her hand, and, looking up at the heavily bruised sky, she received a generous dash of droplets for her trouble. Clearly the meteorological gods had had a bad day at the office, too, because they were in the process of gearing up to throw everything in their armoury at the already bedraggled Friday night commuters.
She began to jog, her head lowered against the sudden onslaught, her eyes smarting from the strength of the breeze slapping the rain against her cheeks and the toxic stench of the exhaust fumes from the stationery traffic. She raised her jog to a sprint, desperate to reach the sanctuary of her home where she could start to formulate a positive spin on the calamity that had befallen her before she called Meghan to explain why she hadn’t turned up at Pierre’s.
Could she brazen it out? Make up some excuse for not turning up at the wine bar?
Sadly, her guardian angel had packed her bags and flown off to sunnier climes because just as her glass front door came into view she saw her friend tumble from the back of a cab, shouting an energetic farewell to the taxi driver who gifted them both with a scowl despite the huge tip Meghan had pressed into his hands.
‘Meghan, what are you doing here?’
‘Well, Jonti and I were worried when you didn’t turn up at the wine bar. We’ve been calling you and texting you, and when you didn’t answer I volunteered to come over to make sure you were okay. Are you okay?’
‘Let’s get out of the rain first, eh?’
‘No problem, you do look like a drowned rat! Hey, do you think that hunky Italian doorman with the come-to-bed eyes will be on duty tonight? I might just have to add him to my list of potential suitors. Don’t you just love the way those guys exude a sexy Mediterranean vibe? Must be all the Chianti they drink!’
A sharp spasm of pain sliced through Izzie’s chest at Meghan’s casual reference to Italy. A crystal-clear image of a terracotta dome, a snippet of quick-fire Italian, and the sharp tang of limoncello shot through her subconscious but she refused to allow her emotions to break free of their guy ropes and wreak havoc once again. Thankfully, she just had to laugh when she saw the disappointment flicker across her friend’s face as the front door was whisked open by Albert – the building’s septuagenarian doorman and metaphorical guard dog who was still going strong after forty years of dedicated service.
‘Tea! I need tea!’ announced Meghan, within seconds of stepping into Izzie’s apartment. She dumped her turquoise satchel on the kitchen bench and set the kettle to boil before wrenching open the fridge door to look for the milk. ‘Oh, my God! Does anyone actually live in this flat? There’s nothing in here apart from… let me see; one, two, three, four, five bottles of prosecco and a tub of out-of-date butter! What do you eat?’
‘Take-out,’ Izzie muttered distractedly as she removed her clipboards from her duffle bag and slotted them, in order, into their allocated spaces on her floor-to-ceiling shelves.
‘Take-out, my eye! You don’t eat take-out! You hate take-out! You call it Devil’s breakfast! Darling, there’s nothing in the cupboards either!’
Meghan was now opening and shutting the kitchen drawers searching for a crumb to keep mind and body together at eight o’clock at night.
‘There’s a loaf of bread in the bread box over there.’
‘Ergh, bread! Now that is a Devil’s breakfast staple. So, black tea it is then.’
Watching Meghan clatter around her tiny kitchen alcove to prepare that universally acknowledged deliverer of solace, Izzie suddenly experienced the strangest of sensations; as though she were totally detached from her surroundings, floating high above a scene being played out below her. She surveyed her best friend from a neutral onlooker’s perspective and decided that her choice of outfit matched her personality perfectly. White jeans that clung to her curves like a second skin, pixie-toed red suede boots, and a soft pink angora jumper that complemented that month’s raspberry ripple hair-colour – another experiment by Jonti that hadn’t turned out quite as expected but which Meghan had declared to be a fabulous success, choosing to wear a clashing satsuma kaftan for work the next day. Heaven knew what her boss Martha made of her sartorial craziness.
Izzie accepted a steaming mug of thick, dark tea and dropped onto the cream leather sofa, liberally scattered with Moroccan throws and sequined cushions – all of which had belonged to her past life when she had adored every colour in the rainbow. She hadn’t been able to entertain anything so vibrant in her bedroom and so had relegated the hand-embroidered soft furnishings to the living room, along with the emerald silk curtains and the matching Persian floor rugs. Meghan joined her, curling her feet under her bottom and wrapping her fingers around her cup as she took a tentative sip, scrutinising Izzie from over the rim.
‘Have you been crying?’
It was the sympathetic expression that did it for her every time. After two years, she could cope with most things except seeing the sadness her predicament instilled in others. That sympathetic look in the eyes, the head tilted to one side, the compassionate smile like the one that was currently scrawled across Meghan’s face. Kindness; who would have thought that it was one of the toughest things to deal with?
‘Izzie, what’s going on? Is it to do with Darren? Come on, tell me before I spontaneously combust with curiosity!’
Izzie gulped in a lungful of air and garnered every ounce of courage she possessed. She knew that the sooner she pricked the expanding balloon of dread, the better she would feel.
‘I’ve been fired.’
‘Fired? Oh my God, is that what he wanted? And he did it over the phone? That man is an absolute moron! Does Harry know? There’s no way he would fire you – Esme adored you.’
‘Apparently hiring and firing is now Darren’s domain.’
‘What ridiculous garbage did he come out with this time? I bet the words get-go and touch-base came into it? He’s a complete idiot, a walking cliché, a…’ she stopped abruptly in her character assassination and softened her expression, a gesture that caused Izzie’s heart to contract painfully. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Look for another job, I suppose.’ She shrugged, forced a smile on her face, and turned to face Meghan who she knew was hurting just as much as she was which caused another spasm of guilt to slice through her abdomen. She had to change the subject fast. ‘Now tell me all about the fashion show. What are you planning for the…’
‘Oh no, you’re not getting away with that, madam. Have you forgotten that I know you better than you know yourself? That you’re the Queen of Diversionary Tactics? Isabella Grace Jenkins, we’ve been best friends since art school and I can spot your shenanigans at twenty paces. We’re going to talk this through until we’ve come up with a definite plan.’
Izzie groaned inwardly, chancing a quick glance at the door to her bedroom. She could almost hear the cool, calm sanctuary calling to her, and she experienced an overwhelming urge to escape into its orderly serenity. She just didn’t have the energy to debate her future with Meghan at that moment. Then she recalled Jonti telling her that the best form of defence was attack, so she met Meghan’s eyes and said, ‘Well, if we’re on the subject of avoidance…’
‘You know, this could actually be a blessing in disguise,’ interrupted Meghan, flicking her hair over her shoulder in a familiar gesture as she swivelled round to face Izzie.
‘Really? Why?’
‘You could use your redundancy money to take a break from the organised, over-scheduled, list-driven existence you call life and spend some time nurturing your emotional well-being. Why don’t you go home to Cornwall for a few weeks? Relax, breathe in the sea air, indulge in some of that glorious seafood the county is famous for, catch up with a few friends?’
‘You know I can’t go home, Meg.’
She couldn’t return to Cornwall, to stay in the bedroom she had shared with her twin sister, Anna, where they had taken the local High School by storm, their mischievous antics legendary with their friends for confusing the teachers, fooling them into believing that they were addressing the other sister when homework was late (always Anna’s). No, despite the tentative steps she had taken towards acceptance of the way things were now, she wasn’t ready to deal with her grief yet.
‘Okay, well, if not Cornwall, then why don’t you go up to Yorkshire? Mum would love to have you stay at the Stables. You could help Darcie and Fran with the horses.’
For the first time since Darren had dropped his bombshell, Izzie’s lips curled at the corners at the look of abject disgust on her friend’s face.
‘Aren’t we a pair of evasion junkies? Maybe we should both splurge a few pounds on a visit to that therapist your dad recommended?’
‘It’s my parents with the problem, not me! Why can’t they just accept that not everyone’s desperate to immerse themselves in an equine–filled lifestyle? Just because I grew up surrounded by the smelly, sweaty beasts does not mean I have to love them, or even like them! And anyway, Brad’s the eldest – it should be him who’s fending off all the parental pressure, not me. Just because he’s this ‘award-winning’ film director and I’m a lowly window dresser! It’s so unfair! I love my career just as much as he does! Why would I want to live in a crusty old Barbour jacket and a pair of green Wellies and when I can float around in an array of wonderful designer clothes?’
‘But how can they be expected to understand your phobia unless you talk to them about it?’
‘I will, I will.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
Izzie couldn’t blame Meghan for dodging the problem. After all, she had a gold medal in the sport herself. Jack and Claire Knowles had hoped Meghan would join them at Hollybrook, one of the best stud farms in North Yorkshire, so that they could pass on the techniques of breeding race horses and eventually hand over the business reins to her when they retired. They were devastated about their daughter’s rejection of what had been in the family’s blood for generations; to them it was a fantastic opportunity, and they were baffled at her attitude. Without an explanation of the reasons behind her actions, they were also angry, which had pushed Meghan even further away, resulting in a self-perpetuating dilemma for both parties.
If Izzie had learned one thing from what had happened two years ago, it was that communication was the most important aspect of any relationship, and choosing not to confide in her family was at the root of Meghan’s estrangement; that as soon as she explained her problem to them, they would understand what had caused her to choose a different path, and why she only visited them at Christmas. However, Izzie had no desire to offer her opinion on someone else’s family feuds. She had her own issues to deal with, which to others might seem miniscule compared to what they were going through, but everything was relative.