Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Rebecca Hazell on THE GRIP OF GOD

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Rebecca Hazell with her latest novel, THE GRIP OF GOD. The author will offer a free copy of The Grip of God to a lucky blog visitor.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

Rebecca Hazell's The Grip of God, the first novel in an epic historical trilogy, is available on amazon.com  and its affiliates and by special order through your local bookstore. The subsequent two novels in the trilogy are scheduled for publication later this year. The saga’s heroine, Sofia, is a young princess of Kievan Rus. Clear eyed and intelligent, she recounts her capture in battle and life of slavery to a young army captain in the Mongol hordes that are flooding Europe. Not only is her life shattered, it is haunted by a prophecy that catalyzes bitter rivalries in her new master's powerful family. She must learn to survive in a world of total war, always seeking the love she once took for granted.

Sofia's story is based on actual historical events that determine her destiny. Readers will delight in this very personal and engaging tale from a time that set the stage for many of the conflicts of today's world.

Praise for the trilogy

“How deftly and compellingly Hazell takes the reader with her into that mysterious and exotic world, and makes it all seem so very close to hand!” – Peter Conradi, Fellow of Britain's Royal Society of Literature and author of Iris Murdoch: A Life, and of A Very English Hero.

"I enjoyed watching her morph from a spoiled sheltered princess with slaves of her own, into a tough, savvy survivor, with a new awareness of social injustice. The book is action packed. I couldn't put it down." -- from a review on Amazon.com.

"I got completely caught up in the characters and story and always looked forward to getting back to them. What a fully fleshed and fascinating world you developed and it was wondrous to learn so much about that time and the Mongol culture. Your gifts come out in your lush descriptions of place and objects. All very vivid and colorful." --author Dede Crane Gaston

**Author Interview with Rebecca Hazell**

Welcome to Unusual Historicals. You certainly have an unusual setting for your novel. What gave you the idea for this series?

Thanks for hosting me. I was literally gripped by the plot for this trilogy when I was about twenty years old, and I still have the first, very crude pages that I wrote way back then. I thought I was going to write only one novel, The Grip of God, but it naturally became three.

My interest in this era actually started when I was assigned to learn Russian instead of German in high school. I got hooked on Slavic culture and majored in Russian history at university. Somehow Kievan, or Kyivan Rus’ interested me more than any other period. It was such a dramatic time, so much happened and spilled over into today’s events, but I didn’t know that yet. I had a rather simplistic idea about the whole thing that got shattered when I did the almost 17 years of research that went into the three novels.

What kept you going when it took so much research? 

It was fascinating! It had never occurred to me that so much was happening simultaneously in Europe, Asia and the Middle East: the Mongol invasions, the final years of the Assassins, the final Crusades, the occupation of Constantinople, and the French Inquisition. And St. Thomas Aquinas and Jalaluddin Rumi were writing great works while Marco Polo’s uncle and dad were traveling to China. What an era!

That was partly why it took so much research because historians generally specialize, and I had to consult many sources for each element of the story. It took me three years of research to find out a single thing about occupied Constantinople. That was a bit discouraging, but I persevered and found out enough to write about it.

How did your main/secondary characters come by their personalities? 

There were several characters that I plotted into the novel from the very beginning, like the Persian merchant, Selim, who has a secret that I won’t give away here, but whose help forms the context for the second novel. Others appeared spontaneously along the way, like Sofia’s young Hungarian servant Anna. In fact, I had to really control Anna and her doings because they threatened to swamp my heroine. On the other hand, Anna’s experiences growing up allow the reader to learn a lot about differences in rank and therefore learning, as well as lots of the superstitions and prejudices of the day.

Other characters like Lady Q’ing-ling popped up out of nowhere to tell side stories, or to help Sofia grow up. I feel that there have always been people of good heart who keep the world afloat like that while the big names start wars and sign treaties; and my secondary characters, with their personalities are like that. They are both unique and also represent their cultural heritages, so the story becomes a sort of rich stew typical of that time.

How hard was it to make the switch from writing for youngsters to writing for adults? 

I was lucky in that as my own children grew older, I started writing for older children. And Sofia was still a child by today’s standards, though twelve was considered adult by medieval standards. Then as she matured, I could show her inner journey quite easily.

What can we look forward to in the other two novels?

Sofia continues her outer and inner journey, crossing paths with many of the important people of her generation. She encounters Persian culture, Crusader culture, and the Inquisition, each challenging her to adapt to outer circumstances, some of them quite dangerous, while not becoming callous or selfish. Though she is tempted! Also tempted by love, as she meets a special someone who is as much trouble in his way as Anna is in hers! There’s lots of adventure and real history interwoven in her story. I cried at the end, and not only out of relief. I think my readers will feel the same.

About the author

Rebecca Hazell is an award winning artist, author and educator. She has written, illustrated and published four non-fiction children’s books, created best selling educational filmstrips, designed educational craft kits for children and even created award winning needlepoint canvases.

She is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and she holds an honours BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Russian and Chinese history.

Rebecca lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1988 she and her family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in 2006 she and her husband moved to Vancouver Island. They live near their two adult children in the beautiful Cowichan Valley.

Visit Rebecca:

Website |Goodreads |Facebook

Excerpt Thursday: THE GRIP OF GOD by Rebecca Hazell

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Rebecca Hazell with her latest novel, THE GRIP OF GOD. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. The author will offer a free copy of The Grip of God to a lucky blog visitor.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

Rebecca Hazell's The Grip of God, the first novel in an epic historical trilogy, is available on amazon.com  and its affiliates and by special order through your local bookstore. The subsequent two novels in the trilogy are scheduled for publication later this year. The saga’s heroine, Sofia, is a young princess of Kievan Rus. Clear eyed and intelligent, she recounts her capture in battle and life of slavery to a young army captain in the Mongol hordes that are flooding Europe. Not only is her life shattered, it is haunted by a prophecy that catalyzes bitter rivalries in her new master's powerful family. She must learn to survive in a world of total war, always seeking the love she once took for granted.

Sofia's story is based on actual historical events that determine her destiny. Readers will delight in this very personal and engaging tale from a time that set the stage for many of the conflicts of today's world.

Praise for the trilogy

“How deftly and compellingly Hazell takes the reader with her into that mysterious and exotic world, and makes it all seem so very close to hand!” – Peter Conradi, Fellow of Britain's Royal Society of Literature and author of Iris Murdoch: A Life, and of A Very English Hero.

"I enjoyed watching her morph from a spoiled sheltered princess with slaves of her own, into a tough, savvy survivor, with a new awareness of social injustice. The book is action packed. I couldn't put it down." -- from a review on Amazon.com.

"I got completely caught up in the characters and story and always looked forward to getting back to them. What a fully fleshed and fascinating world you developed and it was wondrous to learn so much about that time and the Mongol culture. Your gifts come out in your lush descriptions of place and objects. All very vivid and colorful." --author Dede Crane Gaston

*An Excerpt from The Grip of God**

December? Anno Domini 1239

            An evil dream: weird whistling demons were chasing me. I woke into darkness. It took several moments to realize that the whistling was real. A harsh medley of thuds, cries, groans, shouts, clashing metal, and screams of fear and pain brought me fully awake. Our horses, tethered on the far side of the clearing, were whinnying and jostling each other. The dead stranger’s terrible smell was back.
            “Kateryna?” I called softly. There was no answer. I crawled out of my furs to waken her. She was gone. Thinking to crawl to my tent flap, I threw my cloak over my shoulders and shakily drew my eating knife from its sheath, but another unearthly shriek threw me flat as something tore through the tent. When I dared to look up, small holes on either wall gleamed like little gray stars. I inched forward to lift the bottom of the flap a little, but at first all I could see was a boot sole. I lifted the flap a little higher.
            A corpse lay on its back, open eyes glittering in the moonlight, knees bent and boots before my face, its beard obscuring its features. A stick jutted out of its throat—no, an arrow. I dropped the tent flap back down, gulped air, stared at those holes. Where was Oleg? He shouldn’t leave me alone—Good God, this must be a bandit attack and he must be with his warriors fighting it off! But then Kateryna should not be out there. More shouts, screams cut short. Why didn’t Alexander come for me? Should I go or stay?
            It suddenly grew quiet. Oleg’s warriors must be chasing the attackers from our camp. Nonetheless, I hesitated for an eternity, afraid to pass that corpse in case its angry ghost fastened on me. I began to feel both foolish and cowardly. By now Alexander should have come to make sure I was safe—
            Dear God, had something happened to him? I awkwardly pulled on my boots, fastened my cloak, and slowly drew aside the tent flap.
            At first the light from the half-moon transformed the meadow into glowing silver and deep black shapes, lending an eerie beauty to the camp. But then I truly saw. It was as if a tempest had struck: bodies scattered everywhere with arrows thrusting up from most of them, tents askew, goods spilled. Strange men with torches were moving among the fallen, bending over each in turn. A terrible stench struck my nose, a mixture of that dead man’s bad smell, loosed bowels, sweat, and blood. I looked down at the corpse.
            It was Oleg.
            Just beyond him lay Kateryna, her arms flung out, a knife in her hand, blood still oozing from a slash across her breast onto the pelt that lay under her like a funeral bed.
            “No!” I cried. The world went black.
            An iron hand gripped my arm, twisted me around, and pulled me upright. My head cleared, and a stranger stood before me, so like yesterday’s dead man that for a moment I thought it was his ghost. But this man was very much alive. His slanting eyes glinted down at me, his high cheekbones seemed carved of stone. A pointed, plumed helmet covered his head, animal tails dangling absurdly from its sides; metal-plated leather armor covered his clothing. Worst, though, was that foul odor of stale sweat, dirt, and of blood, old and fresh. Not even a peasant stank like that. He grinned at me.
            I swung my little knife, but the man-beast knocked it out of my hand with a humorless laugh. Others like him came up, and they all began barking in some hideous dog speech. One of them squatted by Oleg and Kateryna, slit their throats, cut an ear off each as if carving meat for supper, and stowed his bloody relics in a bulging bag.
            I’d have fainted again, but the man-beast wrenched me upright into painful clarity as he lifted his sword, smirking. With cunning born of terror, I twisted from his grip and fled. He shouted; within moments a pack of those dogs was so close behind me that I could almost feel their breath on my neck. Rabbit-like, I bounded one way and another, jumping over corpses and dodging felled tents, slipping right past one man, to his dismay and the hoots of his companions, but they rapidly encircled and then closed in on me until I had nowhere to go. I was panting with fear and frustration, and they were laughing!
            The circle parted. The warrior who had first found me stepped into it, followed by another with a torch. He glared at me as he marched up, wicked sword in hand, reached out and gripped my arm so hard it nearly broke off, shook me like a rag, forced me onto my knees, yanked my hair up, and raised his sword once again. I closed my eyes, waiting for the sword to strike.
            The blow never came.

  

About the author

Rebecca Hazell is an award winning artist, author and educator. She has written, illustrated and published four non-fiction children’s books, created best selling educational filmstrips, designed educational craft kits for children and even created award winning needlepoint canvases.

She is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and she holds an honours BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in Russian and Chinese history.

Rebecca lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1988 she and her family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in 2006 she and her husband moved to Vancouver Island. They live near their two adult children in the beautiful Cowichan Valley.

Visit Rebecca:

Website | Goodreads | Facebook

Female Pioneers: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1651 – 17 April 1694)

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sister Joan Agnes of the Cross) was baptized on December 2, 1651 in what was then known as New Spain (or Mexico). She was entered in the registry as a “daughter of the church.” In other words, illegitimate. Her given name was Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez. She was the off-spring of a Spanish captain whereas her mother was criolla, a descendant of peninsular Spaniards. Raised by her mother’s family, she had access to tutors and numerous books. She could read by the age of three and write by the age of six. In 1669, she entered the Hieronymite order. Sor Juana remained there until her death while tending to victims of the plague. She was forty-three.

Legend.  Sor Juana incarnates various tropes: proto-Spanish-American woman of letters, Sapphic Spanish-American, Baroque Spanish-American poet, Spanish-American feminist. Sor Juana endures because she literally embodies in her person two worlds: the Spanish Golden Age and the oppressive realities of New Spain. Educated, brilliant, and intellectually curious, she made a reputation for herself among the elite that then governed the Spanish colony. Success of this scope could scarcely have been predicted for a woman born into a rigid caste-system: one in which she was at a triple disadvantage due to her gender, bastardy, and lack of financial independence.

Legacy. Sor Juana authored sonnets, plays, and composed the masterpiece “Primero sueño" (First Dream). To understand what she accomplished in the poem requires a comprehensive knowledge of Spanish baroque poetry, as well as Scripture and mythological references.  Numerous passages astonish, delight and demonstrate considerable intelligence. The poem is an extended dream which narrates the soul’s quest for wisdom unfettered by the body. Unfortunately, the corporeal chains that bind do not offer the soul complete freedom, which would naturally result in death. The final passage, in which the subject at last awakens at daybreak, is ambiguous. The soul, having exhausted all intuition and reason, withdraws back into the body without having attained its goal. Octavio Paz, who has written extensively on sor Juana, construes this as a paradox: “Primero sueño” is a visionary poem that results in “non-vision,” a spiritual experiment that breaks with the charismatic tradition (482).    

“Primero sueño” might have earned the admiration of scholars past and present as a skillful imitation "Soledades” (Solitudes) by the great Spanish poet Luis de Gongora had sor Juana not closed “Primero sueño” with the following: “…quedando a la luz más cierta/el mundo iluminado, y yo despierta.” A loose translation: “… the light becomes more lucid/the world illuminated, and I awaken.” The final line is self-referential, revealing that the speaker is female.

Hence this long poem, nine hundred and seventy-five lines, is regarded as one of her most personal. The poet not only writes of the soul but speaks from her own soul. As Paz states: “… sor Juana is ahead of her time: there is nothing comparable, in the 17th century, in women’s literature… in New Spain, a closed, peripheral society under the control of two jealous powers: the Catholic Church y the Spanish Monarchy (400).”

Scandal:  The Bishop of Puebla requests that Sor Juana write a response to a sermon attributed to the Portuguese Jesuit Antonio de Vierya.  She does as asked, and the work known as “La carta atenagórica” (Athenagorical Letter) is given to the bishop, who not only publishes sor Juana’s argument but publicly responds to the nun under the name sor Filotea. Three months later, sor Juana addresses sor Filotea’s criticisms in the “Respuesta” (Response), in which she defends herself against accusations of self-interest, arrogance, and ambition. “Lust for knowledge,” a phrase used by sor Filotea, must have alarmed her, as it suggests an unhealthy attachment to the humanist scholars sor Juana draws upon in her work. Sor Juana repeatedly asserts that her passion for learning, which came to her at an early age, is a God-given gift, and as such pure. She further states that she never sought to study in order to write (much less teach). Her writings were done at the request of others.  She makes a passing reference to “El sueño,” stating that she did indeed compose it for her own pleasure.  She reiterates her position that women should be taught to read, and nuns in particular, so they can have access to Scripture and theological writings. In addition, she expresses her dismay over the misunderstanding caused by the “Carta,” and that she wants no quarrel that would cause her to be brought to the attention of the Inquisition.  The “Respuesta” will not be published until after her death, by which time sor Juana will have dismantled her library—said to contain hundreds of books—and devoted herself to charitable causes.

Epiloque:  Sor Juana’s place in Latin American literature cannot be underestimated. Who could fail to admire her investigations into art, philosophy, theology, and science?  Her unflagging intellectual curiosity? Despite all efforts to silence her, it is sor Juana who has had the last word. Her trajectory through Latin American culture has not yet ended, and it will continue as long as we, her readers, engage her life and work.

Notes:

All translations of cited material are mine.

Paz, Octavio, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o Las trampas de la Fe (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000).

Kathryn Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain

Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Paula Cappa on THE DAZZLING DARKNESS

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Paula Cappa with her latest novel, THE DAZZLING DARKNESS. The author will offer a free copy of The Dazzling Darkness to a lucky blog visitor.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

A secret lies buried beneath the haunting statuary in Old Willow Cemetery. In Concord, Massachusetts, the surrounding woods are alive with the spirits of transcendentalists Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott. Elias Hatch, the cemetery keeper, is the last of modern-day transcendentalists. Does he know the secret power buried in Old Willow Cemetery? Would he reveal it?

Next door to this cemetery is a lovely gabled house. When the Brooke family moves in, the secret of Old Willow strikes. 

On a cold afternoon in March, five-year-old Henry Brooke does not arrive home from the school bus stop. Antonia Brooke is frantic her child is missing, or--the unspeakable--stolen. Adam Brooke spends a harrowing night searching the Concord woods, fear gripping him as hours pass with no leads. 

Finally, a police dog tracks Henry's scent inside Old Willow Cemetery. Detective Mike Balducci suspects that Elias Hatch knows the truth about what happened to Henry. Balducci knows Hatch's metaphysical beliefs. What Balducci discovers buried in the cemetery is beyond the grave, beyond apparitions or shadowy drifts rushing through the pine trees. 

There are the dazzled faces in the darkened air ... and their secret.

**Author Interview: Paula Cappa**

Tell us about this book, The Dazzling Darkness.

The Dazzling Darkness is a supernatural mystery. We have a cemetery, an ancient secret, and a lost child, Henry Brooke. The opening line is “Elias Hatch is an old soul who spends each day trusting the dead.” This story gives the readers a peek behind the veil of death through Elias Hatch, who is the owner of Old Willow Cemetery.

Is there a central message in your story?

The central theme is within the Brooke family. This story is really a family love story. Antonia and Adam Brooke are on their own journey in this search for Henry and exploring the cemetery. Their relationship is ripped open and from that raw wound, they struggle and find redemption once they enter the darkness. The message is in the darkness.

Who is Henry and what is his role in this story?

Henry is the hero in the story. And this passionate little guy carries it off with a lot of charm. Something happens to Henry in this call to adventure. Once he crosses that threshold, his journey changes everything for him. He brings back with him the “elixir” (metaphorically speaking), and life for the entire Brooke family enters a new realm. I’d give you an example but it would spoil the suspense for the reader.

Tell us about Elias Hatch, the cemetery owner.

Elias Hatch is the threshold guardian in the story. He knows the secrets of Old Willow Cemetery. He is a devoted transcendentalist and clings to using these philosophies. He can be a dangerous man, though … as most threshold guardians can create obstacles and delays. One can’t be totally sure about Elias because he is so secretive and elusive. Most of the story was revealed to me by Elias. He was the character that held all the information for me.

Why did you choose Concord, Massachusetts as the setting?

During the 19th century, Concord was the center for the new thinking of transcendentalism, and even today still carries all that transcendental history (especially from Ralph Waldo Emerson and his philosophy about intuition, insightfulness, and creativity). The path to understanding this idea of the dazzling darkness is based on the metaphysical thinking of transcendentalism, so Concord was right place for this story.

The historical aspect of the story is mostly how Concord’s transcendental history is still affecting life 150 years later.

What role does Ralph Waldo Emerson play in this story?

Emerson is not a live character, nor is he a ghost, although his presence is felt by the characters. Emerson’s thoughts and transcendental teachings act as a creative energy for Elias Hatch, for Detective Mike Balducci and even Antonia Brooke. The novel actually developed from a line in one of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays in his address called Nature. He wrote … “Even the corpse has its own beauty.”

Shocking statement, right? The more I read about Emerson’s personal experiences with death, the more the story began to take shape. Emerson lost his young wife Ellen only a short time after they were married. He buried her in the family vault and a year later, still driven by intense grief, he opened her coffin. What a heart-breaking experience!

And then twenty-five years later, after his young son dies at five-years-old, Emerson opened his coffin as well. These images all connected for me: images of a cemetery, images of a boy named Henry suddenly appeared, coffins opening. The story just unraveled in a very exciting way, and Emerson was that foundation.

If you could compare this book with any book out there we might already be familiar with, which book would it be and why?

I think Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. Her story is about life after death, about a mother and her boy and the pain of losing a child. The time periods of the stories are different. The Dazzling Darkness is present day but flashes back to 19^th century Concord and London and briefly to ancient Rome.

Learn more about author Paula Cappa

On Facebook and Goodreads

New & Noteworthy: March 21

• Blythe Gifford will be a featured author at Chicagoland's Premiere Romance Reading Salon, Lady Jane's Salon of Naperville (IL) on April 1 at 7 p.m. She'll be reading from SECRETS AT COURT and THE WITCH FINDER and she'll be joined by Amy Alessio, Vanessa Knight, Elizabeth Heiter, and Clara Kensie. For more details, and to register, visit ladyjanessalonnaperville.com/2014/03/11/april-1-live-reading-salon/. In addition, she'll be attending the Chicago North Spring Fling Conference, April 25 and 26, giving a workshop on "The Soul of the Brand." Books will be available for sale at both events. You can find more details, and register for the conference here: http://chicagospringfling.com/.

• Check out Ginger Myrick's upcoming alternate history novel, to be released next month! INSATIABLE: A MACABRE HISTORY OF FRANCE is Marie Antoinette as you've never seen her before. Details at gingermyrick.com/insatiable-cover-reveal-and-blurb/.

Excerpt Thursday: THE DAZZLING DARKNESS by Paula Cappa

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Paula Cappa with her latest novel, THE DAZZLING DARKNESS. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. The author will offer a free copy of The Dazzling Darkness to a lucky blog visitor.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

A secret lies buried beneath the haunting statuary in Old Willow Cemetery. In Concord, Massachusetts, the surrounding woods are alive with the spirits of transcendentalists Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott. Elias Hatch, the cemetery keeper, is the last of modern-day transcendentalists. Does he know the secret power buried in Old Willow Cemetery? Would he reveal it?

Next door to this cemetery is a lovely gabled house. When the Brooke family moves in, the secret of Old Willow strikes. 

On a cold afternoon in March, five-year-old Henry Brooke does not arrive home from the school bus stop. Antonia Brooke is frantic her child is missing, or--the unspeakable--stolen. Adam Brooke spends a harrowing night searching the Concord woods, fear gripping him as hours pass with no leads. 

Finally, a police dog tracks Henry's scent inside Old Willow Cemetery. Detective Mike Balducci suspects that Elias Hatch knows the truth about what happened to Henry. Balducci knows Hatch's metaphysical beliefs. What Balducci discovers buried in the cemetery is beyond the grave, beyond apparitions or shadowy drifts rushing through the pine trees. 

There are the dazzled faces in the darkened air ... and their secret.

Prologue

Old Willow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts    

Elias Hatch is an old soul who spends each day trusting the dead.

Midnight at his heels, Elias walks the paths through the gravestones in the deepening night of a moon-splashed cemetery. He stops and gazes straight up at the sky. The constellation of Perseus glimmers right next to Aries. Magnificent. Brooding autumn leaves sail down one by one with breathy sounds. A chill is present. At the gates of Old Willow Cemetery, the twisted vines choke the bald ironworks, their thorny cords crisscrossed into images of wrinkled faces and hoodwinked eyes. Trust. Be brave, old man.

Elias Hatch is the keeper of Old Willow Cemetery, a scientist who imitates the medieval art of alchemy transforming not metal into gold, but hidden reality into clear perception. At least that’s how he would tell it. These secrets.

 Inside the dark hollow of the surrounding woods, he lives like an old cat, prowling here and there for a patch of sunlight, pawing through books each day as if they were his only reliable friends. He does have one friend, a man from Italy, whom he calls loyal. Teenagers tease Elias, calling him Old Saturn, likening the grave keeper to a lion-headed dragon with his stringy mane of white hair, bearded face, and black-ice eyes that are constantly guarding the cemetery.

Twelve weeping willow trees stand outside this walled garden, their trunks bulky like wild muscular men ready to charge should anyone venture inside. The cypresses within the walls are like trees of light, sun trees and moon trees. And there is a blackthorn tree that sheds in autumn, leaving its bony branches to hook over a quarry stone.

Of the abundant trees hovering in this graveyard, there is one long-lived silver birch whose branches extend above a row of small headstones where three babies are buried. Elias, never having had children, sits by the babies’ graves, deep in thought. At the back of the yard, he has a favorite trembling lilac tree. A nervous sort, the tree likes to hug the obelisk carved with two hands raised in benediction. And sometimes, that old wild-hearted pine at the corner swipes at the satin moon as if to snatch it down. Nature growing conscious, Elias might say.

There are pieces of sculpture here among the headstones: the usual doves in flight, angels with curly feathers, a star of David. What cemetery doesn’t have some patron saints—St. Helena of the Cross, St. Agnes with hand over heart. And there is the unusual: a flat stone fresco of the birth of Venus, a kneeling woman draped in flowing veils as she hugs a cross. Elias enjoys petting her bowed head as he passes by.

Deep in the center of the cemetery, another statue draws the eye upward: a petal-thin woman beneath the drape of a thick cape. Her face is barely visible within the folds of the hood: her arms hang loose at her sides; fingers fall limp; a shy ankle peeks out from the hem and exposes delicately carved marble toes. As old stories have gone around the village through the years, the statue is said to weep human tears. Someone named her the Weeping Woman of Old Willow, and children still try to squeeze their faces between the gate irons to see if her tears are real or rain.

Elias Hatch, he knows her tears are not rain.

Greve, Italy   2005                                    

The man in a thin black suit strolled along the noisy Piazza Matteotti, searching for the associate. He threaded his way past open shops selling local produce and ceramics, the walls festooned with long salamis, cheeses, red peppers. At a crude street oven, a young woman chopped mounds of garlic and red-hot cherry peppers on a wooden board and slid them into a hot skillet of olive oil. A quick stir, then she added a handful of jumbo shrimp. The smoky fragrance stimulated his appetite as she tossed the seafood over a bowl of steaming linguine. She lifted her exotic eyes to him. He gave her a wink, and she returned a flirty smile.

Each time the man visited the associate in Greve, they would feast on the most astonishing cuisine. This Sunday in July, the man anticipated another delicious meal. In the distance, on a sunny café balcony, he spotted the associate sitting where a white tablecloth blew in the noonday breezes.

“We meet again, sir.” He greeted the associate in English and sat down.

The associate wore a tan fedora and a white gauzy shirt as wrinkled as his face. His beard was a scruffy grey. Thick tufts of chest hair showed at his neck where antique Roman medals hung on a gold chain. Completely absorbed, the associate ate a bowl of pasta with black olives and juicy tomatoes, pausing only to take a drink of a clear thick liquid.

The man removed the envelope from his jacket pocket, laid it ceremoniously on the table.

The associate half smiled. “Tell your boys in Rome I’m grateful.”

“That’s the full payment, in advance, for this last job.”

“Excellente! Lola will like that.”

“Lola? Who’s that? What does she know?”

“Nada. I’ve not come this far by being stupid.” His pale blue eyes shining, he flipped a small photograph to the man. “My new bride.”

The man held the photo. Lola was about twenty with streaming black hair and the bosom of a goddess.

  “I’ve ordered you the Fave con Pecorino. Very creamy. Cooked all night in a flask with olive oil. Vino?” He signaled the waiter.

“L’aqua minerale. Do you have the location yet?”

 “Aaaaaah.” The associate made circles with his forefinger as if confused in the head. “Maybe America.”

“That’s unusual. Where?”

“Massachusetts, we think.” He lifted a small leather briefcase.

“What’s this?”

“Dossier. For you.”

“Me? What are you saying? You’re not going to complete this last job?”

“Como si dice questo … forse? Maybe. If not, you will do it.”

The man shook his head. “I don’t know the first thing about your business. I can’t do your work. You can’t expect—”

“ ‘By this sign, conquer.’ Constantine of Rome won his battles by such words. Have a little faith.”

“I’m just the messenger here, remember?” Then he whispered, “I don’t even know your name.”

“You’ll know when I’m dead. Doctors say by Christmas.” The associate swallowed another slug of the thick liquid.

“You keep drinking that grappa, you won’t make September. Tell me your name.”

He smacked his lips. “Emilio Perucca.”

“Don’t you want to know my name?”

“What for? You’re just the messenger.”

The waiter appeared, placed down a steaming dish of white beans, crisp pancetta, and thick shavings of Pecorino cheese. Intoxicated with the aroma, the man dived in with his spoon.

Perucca placed a small black velvet pouch on the table.

“What’s this, now?”

“Chiave.”

“What key? You mean—?”

“Si. To the underground hatch.”

Sweat broke on his neck. “The hatch. I know nothing about that! This is your responsibility, isn’t it? I don’t even know where it is.” He pushed the pouch away.

Perucca snatched the pouch and placed it hard on the table. “Pass it on to Cavallo to keep safe. When the time comes, he will contact you through Cordone.” Perucca poured himself another glass of grappa, drank it in thirsty gulps. “We should agree on a place to meet. After it happens.”

The man calmed his nerves with a deep breath. “Where … do you think is best?”

Perucca took off his hat, exposing thin grey hair. “Cimitero.”

“In the cemetery?”

“Si, where else? On Via Cassia in the woods. Look for me on the banks of the Greve River.”

“How will I know … when?”

“Cavallo will call.”

The man’s hands began to shake. “I’ve not done this before.”

Perucca laughed, his pale blue eyes sparkling. “Ah, neither have I. Eat your beans.”

 Learn more about author Paula Cappa

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Author Interview & Book Giveaway: Carol M. Cram on THE TOWERS OF TUSCANY

This week, we're pleased to welcome author Carol M. Cram with her latest novel, THE TOWERS OF TUSCANY. The author will offer a free copy of the novel to a lucky blog visitor.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.

Set amid the twisting streets and sunlit piazzas of medieval Italy, The Towers of Tuscany tells the story of a woman who dares to follow her own path in the all-male domain of the painter’s workshop. Sofia Barducci is born into a world where a woman is only as good as the man who cares for her, but she still claims the right to make her own mistakes. Her first mistake is convincing her father to let her marry Giorgio Carelli, a wealthy saffron merchant in San Gimignano, the Tuscan city of towers. Trained in secret by her father to create the beautifully-crafted panels and altarpieces acclaimed today as masterpieces of late medieval art, Sofia’s desire for freedom from her father’s workshop leads her to betray her passion and sink into a life of loveless drudgery with a husband who comes to despise her when she does not produce a son.

In an attack motivated by vendetta, Sofia’s father is crushed by his own fresco, compelling Sofia to act or risk the death of her soul. The choice she makes takes her on a journey from misery to the heights of passion—both as a painter and as a woman. Sofia escapes to Siena where, disguised as a boy, she paints again. When her work attracts the notice of a nobleman who discovers the woman under the dirty smock, Sofia is faced with a choice that nearly destroys her.

The Towers of Tuscany unites a strong heroine with meticulously researched settings and compelling characters drawn from the rich tapestry of medieval Italy during one of Europe's most turbulent centuries. The stylishly written plot is packed with enough twists and turns to keep readers up long past their bedtimes.

Praise for The Towers of Tuscany

Roberta Rich, author of The Midwife of Venice and The Harem Midwife: "The clever dialogue and fast pace make the novel zing."

Anne Fortier, author of the New York Times bestseller Juliet and The Lost Sisterhood: “The Towers of Tuscany is a delightful escape to the Siena we all love. Carol Cram has crafted a delicious story about a strong woman torn between her secret past, her love of painting and the forbidden charms of her rich patron. Hard to resist and highly recommended!”

Deborah Swift, author of A Divided Inheritance: “Carol Cram's lush descriptions and intriguing characters bring this dramatic tale of medieval Tuscany to life. If you love Italian art, a feisty heroine, and a page-turning plot, you will adore this novel.”

**Author Interview with Carol M. Cram**

Why were you inspired to write historical fiction?

The truth is that I never expected to launch a career as a writer of historical fiction. Over the past two decades, I wrote (and continue to write) business and computer textbooks. Since retiring from a faculty position at a local college, I have been expanding my career as an author to include fiction. I wrote one contemporary novel, but didn’t feel satisfied that it was my best work. Something was missing. I knew I loved history and many of my favorite books are historical novels, but I was convinced that only people with Ph.D.’s and offices filled from floor to ceiling with musty tomes they’ve actually read could even attempt to write historical fiction.

But it turns out that all I really needed was the spark of an idea, and I found that spark one day while thinking about San Gimignano, a hill town in Italy that includes at least thirteen medieval towers and commanding views of the iconic Tuscan landscape.

What was so special about San Gimignano?

During its heyday in the fourteenth century, San Gimignano had over 70 towers. I had visited the town a few times over the past two decades and I had fond memories of it. Why it popped into my head one day while I was trying to come up with a subject for a novel is anyone’s guess. But what happened was that I got to wondering how the town of San Gimignano had looked with 70 towers crammed into the same space as the town occupies today. Had a painter from the period actually depicted them? The answer is no, so far as we know. Landscape painting was in its infancy in the 14^th century and highly stylized.

I decided to invent a painter who departed from the usual religious iconography and painted a view of the towers of San Gimignano in the style of the time. I also decided to make my painter a woman because I was intrigued by the possibility that women must have painted in medieval times, even if they did not become known. Medieval painting was a family affair, so after consulting with experts in medieval art, I concluded that it was plausible that a painter could have trained his wife or daughter in the painter’s craft.

Once I’d created Sofia Carelli, a painter in a man’s world, I was immediately hooked. Sofia snatched up the reins of the story and I followed along as fast as I could. She is a force to be reckoned with and it was marvelous to spend almost four years in her company.

Did you visit Tuscany to research the novel?

People ask me this question a lot and the answer is – absolutely! My two-week solo trip to Italy in 2011 to research The Towers of Tuscany was a delight from beginning to end. I travel frequently with my husband, who is a painter and often has exhibitions in Europe, but this time I was traveling just for me. I was able to focus all my attention on the sights and smells and history of my novel’s setting. I spent most of my time in San Gimignano and Siena, the two cities where all of the action of The Towers of Tuscany takes place. 

In San Gimignano, I really hit the historical novelist jackpot. I discovered San Gimignano 1300 (www.sangimignano1300.com), a wonderful museum in San Gimignano that includes a large scale model of how the town appeared in the year 1300. Two artists have painstakingly recreated the city complete with all seventy of its towers. My morning spent at San Gimignano 1300 was one of the most productive of my writing career to date. In subsequent months, when I was writing and editing the novel, I could refer to my pictures of the model and other museum exhibits and imagine my Sofia walking through the narrow streets that were laid out exactly as they had been in 1300.

I also visited Siena on my solo trip and spent several days wandering the medieval streets and viewing the wealth of fourteenth century art. Many of the paintings and frescoes I viewed in Siena inspired scenes in the novel.

Who will The Towers of Tuscany appeal to?

The Towers of Tuscany is appealing to people who are fascinated by fourteenth century Italy and by Tuscany, particularly the towns of San Gimignano and Siena, where the action of the novel takes place. Readers interested in the glorious art of the period and in the workings of a medieval painter’s workshop are also enjoying the novel.

But most of all, people are enjoying The Towers of Tuscany because of Sofia Carelli, my spirited, talented, kick ass heroine who never gives up her passion for painting or her search for love, even in the face of almost insurmountable limitations. I was recently honored to receive a review of The Towers of Tuscany by bestselling author Spider Robinson who happens to live on the same rain-soaked island as I do. Spider calls my Sofia “one of the most endearing protagonists in years” and the novel itself a “startlingly first-rate piece of historical fiction.” I was also honored to receive the following review from Anne Fortier, the author of Juliet, which is set in Siena during the same period as The Towers of Tuscany:

“The Towers of Tuscany is a delightful escape to the Siena we all love. Carol Cram has crafted a delicious story about a strong woman torn between her secret past, her love of painting and the forbidden charms of her rich patron. Hard to resist and highly recommended!”

For an author, nothing beats knowing that other authors you respect have read your work and enjoyed it.

What other novels do you have planned?

The Towers of Tuscany is my first historical novel with an “arts twist.” I have dipped my toe in most of the arts over the years and my goal is to combine my love of the arts with my love of history to produce novels that celebrate an individual’s journey with his or her art during a particular era. My next novel, tentatively titled Nocturnes, tells the story of a concert pianist in Vienna in the 1820s, shortly after the death of Beethoven and during the last year of Schubert’s life. I plan to release that novel in the fall of 2014. The novel after that tells the story of an actress embroiled in the “Old Price” riots of 1809 in Covent Garden Theatre in London. History and the arts are full of great stories! A sequel to The Towers of Tuscany is also not out of the question. 

Carol M. Cram has enjoyed a wonderful career as an educator, teaching at Capilano University in North Vancouver for over twenty years and authoring forty-plus bestselling textbooks on business communications and software applications for Cengage Learning. She holds an MA in Drama from the University of Toronto and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Carol is currently focusing as much of her attention as she can spare between walks in the woods on writing historical novels with an arts twist. She and her husband, painter Gregg Simpson, share a life on beautiful Bowen Island near Vancouver, Canada, where Carol teaches Nia dance and is also very active in the local arts council. Visit her online at www.carolcram.com. 

Learn more about author Carol M. Cram

Web site: www.carolcram.com

Novel as e-book and paperback on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/m6n3zmu

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/carolcram

Twitter: @carolcram

Facebook: carol.cram