A Venetian Escapade

The Continental Capers of Melody Chesterton #1

by Sarah F. Noel

From the author of The Tabitha & Wolf Mystery Series...It's 1911, and war is brewing across Europe. However, Melody Chesterton, an independent young woman with her own fortune, has more important things on her mind.

Melody is determined to do more with her life than marry well; she wants exciting escapades with perhaps some romance sprinkled in along the way. Chaperoned by her older brother, Rat, who secretly works for Britain's newly formed Secret Service Bureau, Melody sets off for the first stop on her Grand Tour of Europe, Venice.

Unbeknownst to Melody, Rat is on his first solo mission and is plagued by self-doubt. His sister's continual interference and insistence on socialising with the too-charming and very suspicious Conte Foscari just adds to Rat's worries.

Charmed by Venice, Melody is sure that Italy is where she will fall in love and have the adventure of a lifetime - if only her annoying older brother would stop trying to boss her around.

Can Rat complete his mission while keeping an eye on his troublesome, willful younger sister, who is determined to stick her nose in where it doesn't belong? Join in the fun as Melody Chesterton has her first Continental Caper!

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Audiobook, Historical, Cozy Mystery, Amazon

268 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 28, 2024

Reviews

[Rebecca Gregory-Chifos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just Kept Waiting for the Book to Get Good

The premise to this story sounded interesting, and I usually enjoy novels set in the early part of the 20th century. However, less than a third of the way through this story, I just gave up. It was a jumbled, confusing mess, with no background information supplied as to why these two main characters were apparently adopted into the aristocracy; I kept wondering if there was a previous novel to the series, and therefore this one could not be read as a stand-alone. If so, better explanations as to the characters' past should have been supplied. Further adding to the confusion were all the nicknames, which were poorly identified with the actual names/titles of the individuals concerned.

But the silly and predictable attraction of the youthful heroine to the dashing-probably-nefarious guy was boring, and the constant descriptions of fashion, although entertaining, went overboard. The characters seemed flat and two-dimensional. In fact, the best part of the novel, which I did not finish, were the descriptions of Venice.

I gave up, as I said, a third of the way through and deleted the book from my Kindle.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know, maybe I'm just too old to connect with the character here, but I found Melody to be a selfish, self-absorbed and snotty child who has absolutely no conception of how badly she is treating all the people who care about her and who are trying to ensure she does not get herself into big trouble with her behaviour, which she appears hell-bent on doing with the blithe unconcern only the very young and clueless can manage.

I was very annoyed with Melody very early on in this book and unwilling to keep going in the hope that she will settle down as the book goes on.

[Lilly Guirguis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy cow!

This book was so cool!

Here are the best quotes:

Well, that’s a start,” Rat said. “Good job. But what now? He has my gun.” “But he doesn’t have mine,” Melody said, pulling it out of her pocket. “It must never have occurred to him that a pathetic spoilt child might be carrying a weapon.” She tried and failed to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Remembering the passionate kiss in the gondola, Melody was shamed to realise that the moonlight boat ride had been nothing more than a way to maintain a connection to her brother and that Conte Foscari had just taken advantage of a naive young woman’s obvious willingness to be seduced. To see it all so clearly now was to burn with mortification and then anger; how dare he take advantage of her like that. Melody hoped that now Xander at least had been brought to justice, she never had to meet the conte again. She was deeply hurt and even more chagrined. Melody swore never to let herself be that vulnerable to a man again.”

“On the morning that Melody awoke, determined to put everything about the investigation and Alessandro behind her, she received an invitation to join Luisa for lunch. Mia cara amica, I apologise for the short notice, but I have been quite melancholy for some days and woke this morning with a determination to shake off my gloom. If you do not already have plans, please join me at one o’clock to eat only the finest delicacies and wash it down with champagne. Per sempre tua, Luisa.”

[Ka · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book in the spin0ff series of books featuring Mary Sue Melody, the adopted daughter of Mary & Gary S. Tabitha and Wolf from the previous series. These books are set in 1911, a few years before WWI, and Melody is now 18. Her brother is now 22. Melody is visiting an old friend of Tabitha's in Venice because she's decided to travel now that she's inherited a bunch of money, and Rat is accompanying her, ostensibly just as a chaperone but really because he's on his first secret mission for the British government.

Because Melody was such a Mary Sue as a child, I was afraid she'd be intolerably perfect as an adult, but she's actually a better heroine than Tabitha. Tabitha has no faults other than being kind of neurotic, which makes her extremely bland and boring, whereas Melody is naive, impetuous, and mildly skanky, which I appreciate. Sure, she's dumb now and then, but given her age and upbringing, it's not TOO bad. She's also obsessed with having a European romance because she's read a lot of books, so when she meets two hot guys right away, she's chuffed.

SUMMARY AND THOUGHTS ON THE PLOT, FOR MY MEMORY WHEN I READ THE NEXT BOOK:

One of these guys is the Conte Foscari; he's about a decade her senior and apparently some kind of super hot half-British ladies' man. Despite being warned that he's a rake, Melody falls in love with him and makes out with him passionately in a gondola; this questionable activity only ends when he politely sets her aside and says he can't continue because she's too young and innocent and doesn't know what she's doing. Despite this actually being a very honest and gentlemanly thing to do, she is super offended (thus proving him correct) and decides he's a cad, etc. This is fine with her brother, Rat, who immediately disliked the guy and found him suspicious.

Luckily, she's also got guy #2, who she meets at a party. I forget his name but he is British and is the assistant to the British ambassador. He reminds her of a golden retriever... except for a moment, when he runs into guy #1. The two have apparently met before, and guy #2 insults guy #1's mom (or something). However, he's all charm after that and offers to show Melody around Venice, which she takes him up on.

She also goes shopping the next day with the party-thrower and her new best friend, an eccentric rich fashionista lady. The two go to a bookstore so Melody can get some books to learn Italian, and there they discover that the proprietor has been murdered. Melody makes some deductions based on the appearance of the corpse and the crime scene (such as that the victim knew the attacker, and that the attacker escaped through a window and left behind a scrap of high-quality cloth). The cops show up, and the detective accepts her theories with surprising equanimity.

Between going on a date each with the Comte and the British embassy guy, Melody decides to investigate the murder because why not. Rat feels he needs to investigate for some reason related to his secret mission (which Melody doesn't know about) so he doesn't stop her, as chaperoneing his sister is a great cover story for him. Eventually Rat is forced to admit his role to Melody, who is super not surprised since she knew his adopted guardian, Lord Langley, is also in the secret service. They run around following clues and talking to people and chatting about their plans in English, assuming the locals won't understand. Eventually this all culminates in them sneaking into a museum after hours; they believe the villain (whose identity they are still uncertain of) is going to be in this place for some kind of secret meeting or something like that.

Arriving at the location of the secret villain meetup, they are immediately captured at gunpoint by said villain, which turns out to have been the nice British embassy guy who had just asked Melody if she wanted to go steady earlier that day (and she had agreed, then let him smooch her, tsk). He mocks her for believing he could REALLY be interested in some lame English girl like her when he has a hot German girlfriend, who is the daughter of a German businessman dude they met earlier.

The two of them leave the room for some reason, leaving Rat and Melody tied up to think about what they did wrong. They manage to free themselves from their bonds, but don't know how to get out of the room... however, before they can start to panic, the door opens and the hot Conte rescues them, along with the cops. It turns out everyone knew where they were going, because they loudly discussed all their plans where anyone could hear them, so the bad guys were seen taking them hostage and have been apprehended.

The British traitor guy tries to be strong for his girlfriend, but the hot German girl immediately mocks the idea that she was ever actually in love with him, a douchebag so weak he'd betray his country, similar to what he said to Melody, which is a bit of solace for her... but since he committed crimes for this bitch (like murder), this is actually much worse.

It turns out that the Conte (who if you'll recall, is half English) is actually another British intelligence agent who was assigned to watch Rat, which he claims is the main reason he was trying to get Melody to spend time with him -- so he could have proximity to her brother. Both Rat and Melody are totally filled with chagrin and shame... Rat because he fucked up being secretive so completely that the local cops were able to follow them everywhere and overhear all their plans; Melody because she had thought both the Conte and the traitor were really in love with her, so she is now is heartbroken and embarrassed. This experience has presumably seriously damaged her ability to have a trusting romantic relationship.

The Conte decides that despite all the upfuckery, the two of them still did pretty well for newbs, and rather than sending them home, he decides to take Rat with him on his next secret mission in Monaco. Melody decides to come along to help him with any murder mysteries which need solving (since she did a lot of the deduction in this case) and as he recognizes her contributions, Rat reluctantly agrees. She decides she's just gonna ignore the Conte and pretend they never had a passionate makeout session on a gondola.

And thus we have set up the next book! Off to Monaco!

[Doris Brase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Junior G-men

This is Rat's first assignment and Melly first trip to the continent. Staying with a friend of Tabitha in Italy, the duo get involved in a murder mystery while Rat is looking for intelligence on radicals that might affect England. Then more problems arrise as Melly gets attracted to two men and they don't know who they can trust. It's a fun read.

[Danni_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book thinking it was a romance novel, and then it took a left into murder mystery. I was so thrown off and then there was too much going on at once. I had to force myself to finish it 😪 . I probably should have DNF

[Elise Stevenson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I went on a Venetian holiday, was told a lot, and learned nothing at the same time. With some spin-offs, it’s hard to judge whether or not you should read the prequel series. In the case of A Venetian Escape, you absolutely don’t need to have any prior knowledge of the Tabitha & Wolf series because it will be entirely explained and spoonfed to you every twenty pages. And yet, I still felt nothing for anyone. The story is there, the idea is so close to being great, but it fell short in actuality. It’s short, but because there’s so much information, it drags on. Maybe it wasn’t for me, but I gave it the good ol’ college try.

[Katharine]

DNF at page 22. The story may turn out to be cute. But, the writing style was bothering me too much. There was a lot of "explaining" or "telling" instead of just "showing." And, I unfortunately wasn't going to be able to tolerate that long-term.
Very brief example "Mary didn't reply, but her raised eyebrows and pursed mouth clearly said, 'If you say so.'"
One should not have to explain to the reader the possible reason for the raised eyebrows. They should be clear by themselves. Why not simply "In response, Mary said nothing, but raised her eyebrows." or something like that?

[Teri Easterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not having read the preceding books, I felt like I came in at the middle. Snippets of back story helped, but were a little confusing too. Otherwise this is a fast-paced intrigue and espionage in pre-war Italy story that I enjoyed. I like how Melly used her mind to help solve their problems. The interplay between her and her brother was fun. A little bit of romance is stirred in, too.

[Patsy Fine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Twisting Tale

This book has many twists and turns in lovely Italy: Adventures,espionage, intrigue! The heroine is an innocent, intelligent, adventurous young woman who isn't afraid of life and boldly walks right into the mess of pre war Italy and the fun of Venice, which is described in such detail that the reader enjoys the adventure like being there.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

new young protagonists

A good read The main characters are young. 18 and 21 maybe 22. I didn’t love the youthful naivety. The writing was just excellent and logical. I enjoyed the plot of and setting.

[Tisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Melody & Rat.

This series has twists & turns, potential romance. The plot is intriguing with a unique ensemble cast. I enjoy the siblings relationship. Murder and espionage what more do you want with the scenery in Italy.

[Betsy C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed the next sequence

It's fun to see Melody and Rat as (almost ) adults. Lots of characters and intricate interactions, giving these sins a good first step into investigating -- in Venice. What's not to like?

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit it took me a bit to get into this new series by Sarah Noel. I love the Tabitha and Wolf series so the transition was...slow for me. Then I hit a point in the book and couldn't put it down. I loved it and immediately got the next in the series. Worth the read!!

[Katharine Chestnut · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read several of her others books and enjoyed them. This one was lacking. A lot. I kept reading because I was hopeful it would get better. I won't be continuing the series.

[Colleen Clow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the premise of this book and had high hopes but found the FMC to be very annoying and it was hard for me to get past that.

[Dora Suasnavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book.

Very good book, I love that we can now see Rat and Melody on their own adventures. It was good mystery.

[Venya Senaratna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I simply did not care for this one..

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

hoopla

[Julie Carithers Overstreet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murder Mystery

This is the first book in "The Continental Capers of Melody Chesterton." This was a very good and interesting read. A spin-off from "Tabitha & Wolf Historical Mystery Series. " Melody and her brother, Rat, investigate murders. It will keep you guessing.