Five Days in Venice Summary: A Second Chance Romance
TL;DR: Five Days in Venice Quick Summary
A five-day winter book festival in Venice should be simple work for romance novelist Olivia Sackville.
Then crime writer Leo Greene walks onto the same panel.
In Five Days in Venice by Fiona Collins, two authors who last parted badly three years earlier are placed in the same small circuit of palazzos, water taxis, and espresso bars.
Between festival events, Olivia is also visiting her terminally ill godmother on the Lido.
The novel moves between present-day Venice in January 2018 and flashbacks spanning twenty years of near-misses between the two writers.
It is a story built on timing, unfinished conversations, and words that were never said out loud.
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- What it is: A dual-timeline contemporary romance told across forty chapters.
- Central pair: A romance author from a working-class Pimlico background and a bestselling crime writer raised inside a celebrity chef’s household.
- Central problem: Twenty years of bad timing, class friction, and one undisclosed engagement.
- Themes: Forgiveness, grief, storytelling as repair, social mobility, and second chances.
- Tone: Introspective and bittersweet, with sharp banter and a hopeful close.
Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Olivia Sackville | Romance novelist and the book’s central protagonist, raised in Pimlico by her carpenter father. |
| Leo Greene (LL Greene) | Bestselling crime author and creator of the Ben Midnight series; Olivia’s recurring love interest. |
| Charlie Sackville | Olivia’s father, a Pimlico carpenter who dies of an aneurysm in 2004. |
| Gillian Goddard | Olivia’s godmother and an art historian living in Venice; she dies at Hospice Calma Bianca. |
| Isaac Feu | Leo’s stepfather, a famous chef who owns the restaurant Confit and the Wiltshire estate Foxes. |
| Caroline Feu | Leo’s mother, married to Isaac. |
| Balthazar (Balth) Feu | Leo’s stepbrother, who runs bars in the South of France. |
| Cressida (Cressie) Defrey | Daughter of Isaac’s business friend Robert Defrey; briefly engaged to Leo in 2015. |
| Stella | Olivia’s accountant best friend from university. |
| Annabel | Olivia’s university friend who attends book events with her. |
| Meryn | Olivia’s book publicist. |
| Tanya Brik | Leo’s publicist. |
| Beth (@bookWireGirlie68) | Book blogger whose panel question links Olivia’s and Leo’s novels. |
| Anthony Beau | Comedy author on the Venice festival panel. |
| Frances Holland | Contemporary fiction author on the Venice festival panel. |
| Felicity Dunn | British co-organizer of the Venice festival. |
| Valentina Cavilleri | Italian co-organizer of the Venice festival. |
| Damonte | Staff member at Hospice Calma Bianca. |
| Piera | Nurse at Hospice Calma Bianca. |
| Claire Martell | Assistant curator at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection who knew Gillian. |
| James | Finance worker Olivia dated for two years after 2010. |
| David | Olivia’s university friend who attends the 1998 cocktail night. |
Five Days in Venice Summary
Spoilers ahead.
The novel opens in January 2018, when Olivia Sackville arrives at Palazzo Tesoro on the Grand Canal for the first day of the “An English Writer in Venice” festival. Leo Greene has been added as a last-minute panel substitute.
During the panel, blogger Beth stands up and reads matching passages from both authors’ recent novels. The descriptions of burrata, Bistecca alla Fiorentina, cabbage with anchovies, and chocolate gelato are identical.
The scene comes from a real meal the two shared in Bologna. Olivia and Leo deflect the question in unison and claim coincidence.
Over the following days, Leo accompanies Olivia to Gillian’s emptied house on the Lido and to Hospice Calma Bianca in Castello. He adjusts Gillian’s pillows, pours her water, and writes a note in her bedside notebook.
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At a reading at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Leo reads a passage in which his detective Ben Midnight seeks forgiveness. Afterward, he and Olivia become locked in a museum office and share a kiss. Olivia pulls away and tells him it is too late.
At the festival’s Final Dinner at Palazzo Venetis, Leo follows Olivia onto the balcony. He tells her he began therapy after Tuscany, called off his wedding to Cressie a week before the ceremony, and has loved Olivia for twenty years. She leaves.
That night, nurse Piera calls Olivia to say Gillian is dying. Olivia arrives just after Gillian has passed.
On the nightstand is a note in which Gillian explains she had kept her distance because Olivia reminded her so strongly of Charlie. Beneath it, Leo has written: “If time doesn’t heal, words can.”
The next morning, Leo’s publicist Tanya drops his orange notebook in the hotel lobby. Olivia helps gather the loose pages and finds years of handwritten gratitude lists, every one of them ending with her name.
Olivia runs through the Venetian streets to Inizio’s espresso bar, where Leo is standing among local regulars. She throws her arms around him and tells him she loves him.
Leo proposes they marry and build a life together. The couple reconciles to the cheers of the Venetian crowd.
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Who Will Enjoy This Book
- Readers of second-chance and dual-timeline romance.
- Anyone drawn to winter Venice as a setting.
- Readers who like stories about writers, publishing, and creative partnerships.
- Fans of slow-burn relationships shaped by grief and family history.
Summary by Chapter
Spoilers ahead. This section lists all 40 chapters in brief. The book alternates between dated present-day Venice chapters and dated flashbacks.
Chapter 1: Venice – Tuesday 9 January 2018
Olivia arrives at Palazzo Tesoro for the festival’s first day and finds Leo Greene has joined the panel as a substitute. Publicist Meryn leads her into the Sala Grande with authors Anthony Beau and Frances Holland.
Chapter 2
Leo teases Olivia about her longer hair before the panel begins. During the audience Q&A, blogger Beth asks both authors a question about their novels.
Chapter 3
Beth reads out the matching restaurant scene from both books, and Olivia and Leo dismiss it as coincidence. Olivia recalls spotting Leo at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2016 and resolves to download his novel.
Chapter 4
Leo dominates the rest of the Q&A with stories about researching crime plots in London. Olivia mentions a past writers’ retreat in Tuscany and tells the audience her godmother is in a hospice in Castello.
Chapter 5
The authors gather in the Palazzo Tesoro garden for Prosecco. Leo invites Olivia to lunch at Harry’s Bar, and Meryn pushes her to accept once Beth’s post begins going viral.
Chapter 6: London – Thursday 20 August 1998
Nineteen-year-old Olivia meets twenty-one-year-old Leo at South Kensington Tube station after her ticket fails. They share a mojito at The Cheshire Arms and kiss, but Leo mentions a new girlfriend and Olivia walks away.
Chapter 7: Gatwick Airport – Monday 8 January 2001
Olivia runs into Leo during a flight delay while travelling with Annabel and Stella. Leo, now reviewing restaurants for the Evening Whisper, still has a girlfriend, and Olivia declines his offer of a drink.
Chapter 8: Venice – Tuesday 9 January 2018
The group walks to Harry’s Bar through puddles left by acqua alta. Beth joins their table and remarks that protagonists must resolve past conflicts and forgive each other before a happy ending.
Chapter 9
After cocktails and coffee, the group crosses St Mark’s Square toward the water taxi pier. Olivia stumbles, Leo catches her arm, and he admits he knew she would be at the festival.
Chapter 10: London – Tuesday 28 September 2004
Olivia visits her father Charlie at his Pimlico workshop on his birthday. Gillian Goddard arrives and takes them to the Gielgud Theatre for a behind-the-scenes tour of a wooden stage set.
Chapter 11
A week earlier, Olivia collects a payslip from the Morning Shout offices and approaches Leo at his desk. He notices she wears no rings and asks her on a date for the following evening.
Chapter 12
At the Gielgud, Olivia, Charlie, and Gillian inspect the Byzantine-style set for The Merchant of Venice. Gillian urges Olivia to write a novel, and Charlie talks woodworking with set designer Max.
Chapter 13: Venice – Tuesday 9 January 2018
Olivia slips away from the group and hires a gondola, riding through the canals under grey blankets. She thinks about her estrangement from Gillian and her history with Leo.
Chapter 14: London – Friday 22 October 2004
After her father’s funeral, a drenched Olivia collides with Leo near Green Park. She breaks down against his coat and tells him Charlie died of an aneurysm on his birthday, the night before their planned date.
Chapter 15
Leo takes Olivia to the Ritz, where she drinks whiskey and describes how Charlie collapsed on the Gielgud steps. Leo shares his own history, including his real father’s abandonment and the burn scar on his wrist.
Chapter 16
Olivia invites Leo back to her father’s Pimlico flat, where she takes a lavender bubble bath while he sits on a kitchen chair and talks with her. They spend the night together and agree they will part before the day ends.
Chapter 17: Venice – Wednesday 10 January 2018
Leo meets Olivia at the Hotel Figo jetty and they ferry to the Lido to pack boxes at Gillian’s house. They find the interior already cleared, leaving only a small stack of books.
Chapter 18
At Hospice Calma Bianca, Olivia is struck by her godmother’s frail appearance. Leo adjusts Gillian’s pillows and pours her water, and nurse Damonte shows them the notebook where Gillian writes.
Chapter 19
Leo takes Olivia to Casa Macellare, a butcher’s shop restaurant with an open fire pit. Over lunch he asks whether they can write their way back to each other, and Olivia keeps her distance.
Chapter 20: London – Friday 16 November 2007
Olivia attends a Piccadilly book signing for debut author Simeon Dunne with her pregnant friend Annabel. Leo approaches her in the shop and she excuses herself.
Chapter 21
Outside, Leo admits he obtained the guest list to find her, and Olivia lies that she no longer thinks about him. The next day he collects her in a navy Porsche after a library workshop and invites her to Wiltshire.
Chapter 22
They drive to Foxes, Isaac Feu’s Tudor-Gothic estate, where Isaac questions Olivia about her social background. Leo shows her to a guest room with homemade biscuits on the pillows.
Chapter 23
Olivia meets Cressida Defrey and Leo’s stepbrother Balthazar at a ten-course dinner party. Overhearing Isaac disparage Leo in the salon, she follows Leo up to the attic to see his Scalextric set.
Chapter 24
Leo asks Olivia to start a relationship, and she declines in favour of friendship and writing. He insists he sees Cressie only as a friend whose father wants a business marriage.
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Chapter 25
Back in London, the two exchange chapters, margin notes, and character trait lists over many months. Leo lands agent Rowan Langford and bestseller status, while Olivia receives a revision request from agent Janice Sullivan.
Chapter 26: London – Friday 12 February 2010
Olivia attends Leo’s crime writing workshop while working as a London Library assistant and cleaning City offices at night. Afterward she accepts a drink invitation from James, a finance worker whose office she cleans.
Chapter 27: Venice – Wednesday 10 January 2018
Olivia and Leo sign books side by side at Libreria Acqua Alta. Leo slips on the bookstore’s staircase of compressed books and lands on his back, and the two dissolve into laughter.
Chapter 28: Tuscany – Wednesday 5 August 2015
Olivia attends a writers’ retreat at Villa Margo in Arezzo with several other authors. Leo arrives unexpectedly from the Perugia film set of his novel and Olivia retreats to her room.
Chapter 29
Olivia changes her mind, puts on a baby-pink dress, and walks to Nico’s restaurant to join the group. She and Leo slip onto a private balcony with a bottle of red wine, and he says he has missed her.
Chapter 30
Walking back to the villa, Leo trips over a peacock and the pair laugh together on the lawn. Inside Olivia’s bedroom he hesitates and steps back, and a hurt Olivia asks him to leave.
Chapter 31
The next morning Leo offers to drive Olivia to Siena in a rented vintage Alfa Romeo Spider. They visit the Monteriggioni film set, then drive to Bologna and check into separate rooms.
Chapter 32: Venice – Thursday 11 January 2018
At the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, curator Claire Martell gives Olivia a scroll of Gillian’s papers. Leo reads a passage in which Ben Midnight seeks forgiveness and asks Olivia whether they can find a lasting ending.
Chapter 33
Olivia finds Leo writing in his orange notebook on the museum’s roof terrace before the group’s evening party. In a dim office below, he kisses her, and she stops him and says it is too late.
Chapter 34: Tuscany – Thursday 6 August 2015
Leo and Olivia dine at Casa Angelo in Bologna on the meal that later appears in both their novels. He confides a childhood memory about Isaac tormenting him at a canal lock, and they kiss by a dark canal wall.
Chapter 35
Leo takes Olivia to a ten-course tasting dinner hosted by Isaac at La Clementina in Santa Luce. Caroline reveals Leo has been engaged to Cressida for a year, and Olivia confronts him in the lavender field, revealing what Isaac once said about Leo not being his real son.
Chapter 36: Venice – Friday 12 January 2018
Olivia dresses for the Final Dinner at Palazzo Venetis in a pale yellow silk gown. Her friend Stella flies in and asks how she feels when she looks at Leo, and Olivia admits she feels lit up.
Chapter 37
Seated beside Leo at the banquet, Olivia steps onto the balcony with him after dessert. Leo reveals he has been in therapy and called off his wedding to Cressie a week before the ceremony because he loved Olivia, and she runs off.
Chapter 38
Nurse Piera calls Olivia to say Gillian is dying, and Olivia arrives just after her godmother passes. On the nightstand Gillian has left a note explaining she kept her distance because Olivia reminded her of Charlie, with Leo’s line written beneath it.
Chapter 39
Back at Hotel Figo, Tanya drops Leo’s orange notebook and Olivia picks up the loose pages. She finds years of gratitude lists, every one ending with her name, and learns Leo has gone to Inizio’s coffee bar.
Chapter 40
Olivia runs through Venice to Inizio’s and finds Leo among the local espresso drinkers. She confesses her love, he declares his, and he proposes they marry and build a life together as the regulars cheer.
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What the Novel Returns To
| Theme | How the Book Presents It |
|---|---|
| Forgiveness and Reconciliation | Olivia and Leo work through grievances accumulated over twenty years, and Olivia repairs her estrangement from Gillian through the note left at the hospice. |
| Storytelling and the Power of Words | Both leads are novelists who edit each other’s manuscripts by email; Gillian leaves written letters and Leo keeps handwritten gratitude lists. |
| Class Differences and Social Mobility | Olivia’s working-class Pimlico upbringing and her father’s carpentry trade sit against Leo’s life at the Foxes estate and inside a wealthy publishing circle. |
| Grief, Memory, and Loss | Charlie Sackville’s sudden death in 2004 and Gillian’s terminal illness shape Olivia’s choices and her writing. |
| Fate, Timing, and Second Chances | The pair meet repeatedly without planning to — in London, Gatwick, Wiltshire, Tuscany, and Venice — across two decades. |
Books Like Five Days in Venice
- One Day by David Nicholls — Two British characters cross paths on the same date across twenty years, tracking timing, maturity, and a long-deferred connection.
- The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver — An atmospheric romance about grief, memory, and the work of moving forward after loss.
- In Five Years by Rebecca Serle — A reflective contemporary romance about fate, unexpected paths, and the lasting effect of love and loss.
- One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle — A destination novel set in Italy dealing with family heritage, grief, and self-discovery.
Book Details at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: Contemporary Romance / Dual-Timeline Romance
- Core Narrative Tropes: Second chance romance, forced proximity, lovers-to-strangers-to-lovers, shared secret history, opposites attract across a class divide
- Tone & Atmosphere: Introspective, atmospheric, bittersweet, with sharp banter and a hopeful ending
- Primary Conflict: Unresolved grief, class-based insecurity, and Leo’s undisclosed 2015 engagement, which prevent Olivia from trusting him
- Pacing Style: Non-linear, alternating between a five-day present-day festival and chronological flashbacks
- Book Structure: 40 chapters, alternating dated Venice chapters and dated historical flashbacks
- ISBN-10: 1662531141
- ISBN-13: 978-1662531149
- Pages: 367
Quotes from Five Days in Venice
“We could be the perfect match. We could both be exactly what the other never knew they needed.” — Leo Greene to Olivia Sackville at The Cheshire Arms pub.
“Write first, edit later… Like most things in life, just do it, and you can always come back and make it perfect later on.” — Romance author Kitty Codwell during a library writing lecture.
“Isaac believes that food is the one true art… One that can be swallowed up and devoured in three seconds. He believes art should be bold, beautiful, and then gone. I want to create something a little longer lasting.” — Leo Greene to Olivia Sackville at Foxes estate.
“Forgiveness is a wonderful thing… Sometimes you need someone else’s words.” — Leo Greene and Gillian Goddard at Hospice Calma Bianca.
“If time doesn’t heal, words can.” — Leo Greene, handwritten note inside Gillian Goddard’s bedside notebook.
“I’ve missed you. I always miss you when you’re not around. I just feel that we belong together, you and me.” — Leo Greene to Olivia Sackville on the balcony of Palazzo Venetis.
“Nobody else makes me feel like you do. Nobody else comes close. You’re the only one I want to go on a road trip with… I love you. I love you.” — Olivia Sackville to Leo Greene at Inizio’s espresso bar.
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