Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Summory:
Fifteen-year-old Lilly Shetlar just wanted to spend the summer online, but her cheerfully clueless, middle-class parents had other plans: a month-long, forced "cultural immersion" across Europe with her annoying five-year-old brother, Freddie. The adventure begins in disastrous fashion in cold, judgmental Paris, where frustrating language barriers and a crushing digital blackout send Lilly into a spiraling existential crisis.
The family's strained journey finds a temporary reprieve in Spain, offering warmer weather, friendlier locals, and a tenuous lifeline of slow Wi-Fi. But it's in sparkling Italy that Lilly’s entire perspective shifts. Granted the sanctuary of a private hotel room and blessed with high-speed internet, she is finally free-and then she meets Marco. Charming, charismatic, and cruising on a vintage Vespa, the Italian boy utterly captivates Lilly's heart.
Their whirlwind three days together, sealed with a tender kiss and promises of forever, transforms the trip from a prison sentence into the best month of her life. Back home and completely smitten, Lilly is obsessed with bridging the Atlantic divide, only for her newly "relaxed" parents to drop one last bombshell: Mom is pregnant. Lilly's life just went from chaotic to completely uncontrollable, and all she can think about is Marco.
Books › Teen & Young Adult › Literature & Fiction › Social & Family Issues › Family
Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Author: Warren M. Walker
Publisher: V & W Publishing
https://publishing.irishknights.co.za/the-italian-kiss-short-story/
Available on Amazon.com:
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0DCLJB73X
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0FV1SR61M
Just back from a month-long European tour with her family, Lilly is readjusting to life stateside. The trip was a whirlwind of highs and lows: from the crushing boredom of Paris to a life-changing encounter in Italy. After nine hours of a miserable plane ride home, she is ready to spill all the details of her transformative trip to her best friends, Sarah and Maria.
In this episode, Lilly recounts her disastrous time in Paris, a city she describes as a "digital death sentence," and a more tolerable, albeit uneventful, stay in Spain. The real turning point of her trip, however, was Italy. There, she not only found a decent Wi-Fi connection but also a charming Italian boy named Marco, complete with a vintage Vespa and a kiss that felt straight out of a movie.
But the drama doesn't end there. Just as Lilly begins to settle back into her routine, her parents drop a bombshell that will change everything. Tune in to hear about Lilly's European adventure, her budding transatlantic romance, and the big family news that leaves her reeling.
Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Author: Warren M. Walker
Publisher: V & W Publishing
https://publishing.irishknights.co.za/the-italian-kiss-short-story/
Available on Amazon.com:
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0DCLJB73X
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0FV1SR61M
Welcome back to The Shetlar Family European Disaster Tour: The Podcast. If Paris was a frown and Spain was a shrug, Italy is a full-blown cinematic experience—complete with perfect lighting, rolling green hills, and a soundtrack that swells every time I step outside.
The upgrade is instant: a gorgeous hotel with a terrace overlooking the sea, a private room (a miracle!), and the holy grail of travel: 98 Mbps Wi-Fi! Forget cultural exchange; this is a digital rebirth. I’m back online, uploading everything, and no longer feeling like a castaway.
But all of that is just setting the stage for Marco.
I spot him sitting on a vintage Vespa in a tiny village—dark, messy hair, a mischievous smile, and an accent that makes the word “ciao” sound like a love song. My cynical, band-hoodie-wearing teenage heart officially short-circuits. He invites me to see "the real Italy," and against all middle-class parental logic, Mom and Dad actually agree (after an intense background check, of course).
Join me as I trade my stained athletic shorts for cool denim, hop on the back of his Vespa, and experience the pure, wind-in-my-hair freedom of a hidden beach. We talk, we laugh, and in a perfect, golden-lit moment outside my heavenly hotel room, the Italian rom-com reaches its climax with a soft, gentle, heart-stopping kiss.
I’m no longer just surviving the family vacation; I’m living the dream. But with only three days of perfection and a transatlantic distance ahead, will the fast Wi-Fi be enough to keep a forever promise alive?
Tune in to find out if I make it home—or if I’m already planning my next flight back.
Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Author: Warren M. Walker
Publisher: V & W Publishing
https://publishing.irishknights.co.za/the-italian-kiss-short-story/
Available on Amazon.com:
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0DCLJB73X
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0FV1SR61M
Welcome to The Shetlar Family European Disaster Tour: The Podcast, where one perpetually misunderstood teenager documents her parents' questionable taste in travel and the slow descent into middle-class chaos.
After escaping the "Tiny Parisian Box of Germs," the next leg of our forced cultural education takes us to the sun-baked, salt-scented glory of Spain. The air is warm, the people are genuinely friendly, and I have actual space to deploy my 'I Survived Paris' band hoodie. It's almost... enjoyable.
Almost.
The universe (which clearly has it out for the Shetlar family) immediately reminds us we can't have nice things by losing Mom's entire suitcase—the one with her sensible skirts and her high-end SPF. This forced minimalism is a catastrophe for her, but for me? It's hilarious. For the first time ever, my control-freak mom is forced to live on the edge, rationing concealer and wearing Dad's ridiculously oversized vacation T-shirt.
But the real miracle of this chapter isn't the sunshine or the tapas; it's the Wi-Fi. It’s agonizingly slow—dial-up slow, the kind of speed where you can age waiting for an image to load—but it’s unlimited. This digital lifeline, stretched thin and constantly buffering, restores my connection to the outside world, making me an international traveler with slightly laggy social media access.
Join me as we navigate lost luggage, a semi-luxury boat tour with surprisingly good tapas, and the quiet, nightly ritual of reading Jack: The Dentist to my little brother, all of which somehow turns my initial horror into a lukewarm, almost pleasant acceptance.
The dread is gone. I’m surviving. But will Italy deliver the holy grail of family travel: high-speed fibre optic?
Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Author: Warren M. Walker
Publisher: V & W Publishing
https://publishing.irishknights.co.za/the-italian-kiss-short-story/
Available on Amazon.com:
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0DCLJB73X
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0FV1SR61M
A nine-hour flight that felt like 80,000, a suffocatingly small hotel room, and the utter betrayal of slow Wi-Fi. Fourteen-year-old Lilly is not having the Parisian adventure her parents, Elizabeth and Bob, promised. From the moment they touch down in France, the trip is a masterclass in middle-class travel disappointment.
Join us as Lilly navigates the cultural minefield of her family's ambitions. Listen in as Dad, in "The Intrepid Explorer" mode, attempts a seizure-like mime to get a taxi, Mom struggles to maintain a polite veneer in the face of a "Petite Chambre Familiale" the size of a walk-in closet, and Lilly grapples with the agonizing reality of being digitally banished with a tragic 0.5 Mbps Wi-Fi connection.
This week, we recount the saga of The Louvre Debacle (where the Mona Lisa is judged for not smiling), the Eiffel Tower Washout (where they pay to stand inside a cloud), and the Unfriendly Locals who confirm Lilly's hypothesis that Europeans are just too cool for them. Trapped in a tiny, slightly damp room with a snoring father and a suitcase privacy partition, Lilly starts a countdown to freedom. Paris isn't beautiful enough to forgive. Next stop: Spain.
Book Title: The Italian Kiss Short Story
Author: Warren M. Walker
Publisher: V & W Publishing
https://publishing.irishknights.co.za/the-italian-kiss-short-story/
Available on Amazon.com:
Kindle:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0DCLJB73X
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Italian-Kiss-Short-Story-By-Warren-Walker/dp/B0FV1SR61M