Speed Dating with a Book - Contestant #3

Meet Contestant #3, a Historical Fiction!

A bit about this contestant:
Contestant #3 seeks adventure in the name of love. Their travels will take them across Europe to deliver three letters in an attempt to correct the past. Will fate entice you to join them on their journey?

The first words they'll say to you (a snippet from the first page):
Veneto Estate, East Hampton, New York
January 1937

My grandmother didn’t often arrange luncheons in the middle of winter. She disliked entertaining in the colder months almost as much as she disliked the many pills and medicines Henrietta made her take every night, so I was surprised when she’d ask me to be home for noon, “on the dot.” Violet was very precise about time. “Seconds matter” was one of her favorite reprimands when one or the other of us dawdled. She'd said there was something important she wanted to discuss with me, and from the brightness in her voice I could tell she was up to something. Violet was often up to something, or about to be.
     I drove the familiar ocean road toward Veneto, our Long Island home. The golden beaches were shrouded in sea mist, the salty tang heavy in the air beneath the moody clouds. It was a seascape begging to be captured in oils–or watercolor, perhaps–but the prospect of sitting down to paint didn't appeal to me as it usually would. All I could think about was how empty our home would be without Violet tending her beloved rose garden, or listening to jazz on her old gramophone, the clink of ice in her glass at five o'clock.