In this sensual romantic feast, Elena is an Italian twenty-
something girl working in Venice, restoring wonderful
frescoes which are gradually succumbing to the humid air.
She's absorbed in her art restoration, up on a ladder with
her hair tied in a cloth, but luckily she has good friends
from her student days who keep her involved in their lives.
I WATCH YOU sees Elena too tired to go out clubbing with
her high-society pal Gaia, so she agrees when Filippo
offers to come around with pizzas. She's annoyed that her
current employer, a restaurateur, wants to board a new chef
in the palazzo where she's working; he'll be in the way of
her ladders, buckets and paint. Chewing pizzas with a guy
who likes her but isn't a boyfriend sounds so relaxing.
Since Elena's vegetarian and teetotal, her pals do find
making compromises for her somewhat tiring, and next time
they're out on the town in Venice they suggest a Japanese
restaurant. Not before Elena's bumped into the new chef,
Leonardo. Next day Gaia comes to watch Elena work,
unexpectedly, and flirts with Leonardo, not so
unexpectedly. Really, how is a girl supposed to get a
fresco painted? Filippo is being sent to Rome for work,
and before he goes he tells Elena that he loves her. But
Leonardo, whom Elena doesn't know at all, also fancies her
and starts to make it plain. How did her life get so
complicated?
I relished the lagoon city of Venice as a character in
itself. Cobbled streets, piazzas, churches, campaniles,
canals; the tap water has limescale and tourists ask
passers-by to photograph them, while between rain and tide,
the streets flood. Elena is a passive participant in her
city, letting others have a good time, letting men take the
initiative with her. Leonardo, who does not promise
romance, wishes to open the girl to pleasure and passion.
All the senses are explored as we are invited to taste,
touch and feel our way to enjoyment, to live life to the
full and mix delicious anticipation with surprise and
immersion in erotic hedonism.
Elena grows up and makes some mistakes but learns to know
what she really wants. Irene Cao has written an intimate
portrait of a modern girl to make us reconsider our own
lives. I WATCH YOU is translated from Italian by Emily
Kate Price and should appeal to fans of erotic literature
as well as hopeless romantics.
What do you do when your greatest temptation is a
dangerously handsome and alluring man?
Elena works as an art restorer in Venice, and is in the
process of bringing an old fresco to light in a historic
palazzo. Art is her world, along with her best friend, Gaia,
and Filippo, an old pal who she thinks just might be her new
love . . . until Leonardo comes along. A chef with a
tempestuous spirit, Leonardo is in Venice to launch a new
restaurant, and he pushes all of Elena’s buttons—good and
bad. As Leonardo awakens Elena’s senses, she faces the
difficult yet exciting choice between the safety Filippo
promises and the danger of Leonardo’s embrace.
I Watch You is part one of a bestselling erotic trilogy that
proves Italians definitely do it better.
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