A captivating journey of life, love and discovery abroad, with an inspiring contemporary love story that unfolds unfolds amidst some of the world's most inspiring locales, including Venice, Prague and the Greek islands.

An ill-fated affair with the wife of his boss in San Francisco consigns Mark Vandermar, mid-thirties marketing executive, to Venice’s Office of Tourism where he is expected to be the lure for skittish post Sept. 11 American tourism dollars.

Mark ‘didn’t move to Venice to become a drunk or a thief’ but takes turns at both as he steals a gondola, purloins a painting from a church, and befriends a philosophical Venetian bar owner. Living excessively, he grapples with God and society while seeking his place in the world.

Mark immerses himself in Venice’s past and present, her canals and campos where he meets a mysterious artist who won’t reveal her name and finds himself falling in love with Venice and the girl— who disappears.

Mark is beckoned to sing the siren song of Venice in some of Europe’s most interesting cities including expatriate haven Prague, where his over indulgences and drunken adventures include a jump off Prague’s Charles Bridge and a marriage of convenience in an effort to do a ‘small favor for a revolutionary’ and secure the American dream for the sister of one of the leaders of Prague’s Velvet Revolution.

Back in Venice, while America readies itself for the second invasion of Iraq, Mark is a misfit solitary newlywed in the world’s most romantic city eventually learning how to follow his heart – and with whom to share it. Ultimately Mark and the woman he loves construct a new life for themselves on Hydra and discover, in the quiet off season autumn on a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, the secret to being happy and finding one’s place in these chaotic and uneasy times.

A novel that explores the urge to be somewhere else while setting up a romantic and poetic conclusion of finding a person and a place you may never want to leave. At turns reminiscent of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises sated with compelling interior character insight and Graham Greene flair, Losing Venice is a richly textured exploration of the self, of love and life in which the captivating city of Venice plays a central role and delves into the possibilities, perils and pleasures of finding yourself in foreign lands.

"If you’ve ever wondered why people still write novels, reading Stavrou’s, Losing Venice, might answer your question. This funny, poignant account of failure that turns to success is not a perfect novel but a beautiful one. It captures a moment and place that, though in the recent past, seems as distant as Hemingway’s Paris and as important. A reminder of what the business of literature, of living is. All lovers of the art of writing and romance should read it. A wonderful book."
George Crane, best-selling author of Bones of the Master and Beyond the House of the False Lama

In addition to his books and articles, more of Stavrou’s writing can be found on Medium and Twitter.

His novel, Losing Venice, can be found in paperback in select bookstores and in paperback and e-book at Amazon & other retailers here:

• Amazon (4.9 stars)
• Apple, B&N, Kobo and more