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.