David Hewson--The Borgia Portrait

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Books are the very best means of armchair travel, and if you have loved Venice, in your imagination or in real life, I have got just the thing for you. 

Here's a confession on my part: I have only been to Venice once, a long time ago, on my very first trip to Europe with my parents. But, oh, what an impression it made! I can still see us, drinking Campari and sodas at a cafe table in the Piazza San Marco...

So I'm shouting out a big thank you to David Hewson for taking me there in his new series set in Venice. (And if that cover doesn't make you want to get on plane and go there, you have no romance in your soul!)

But it turns out it wasn't so easy for David to get there, either...

  The Borgia Portrait 

DavidHewson

 

So how was lockdown for you? Yeah. Join the club. My entire career as an author has been based around my ability to get out there and try to squeeze stories out of the real world. Rome, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Venice… they’ve all inspired my books over the years.

Then along came Covid and for the first time in my adult life I found I couldn’t go anywhere, take pictures, seek inspiration among ancient stones, even talk to people except through the grim medium of Zoom. No, I was stuck at home in England wondering how on earth I could find something to write in those circumstances.

Once during 2021 the barriers were briefly lifted and I could track back to a deserted Venice for a fortnight, though only if I spent the first five days in solitary quarantine. Then I was home in lockdown again and thinking… how do I write something in this strange vacuum?

The answer… make a return visit to Venice in my imagination, and this time in the form of a relatively light-hearted mystery. An entertainment, a virtual trip to one of the most extraordinary cities on earth. That first book, The Medici Murders, came out last year and introduced a most unlikely protagonist, Arnold Clover, a retired archivist, a modest, intelligent man who aches for a quiet life in his adopted city and somehow seems unable to find it. In the first book he’s drawn into a mystery about the real-life assassination of a scion of the famed Medici family in the sixteenth century. The Borgia Portrait finds him swallowed up by Venice’s astounding history once more, and struggling to come to terms with sides of the city he never knew existed.

Most stories begin with a ‘what if?’ This one harks back to the early sixteenth century and the notorious Borgia clan who briefly held sway in the Vatican – the father, Rodrigo, as Pope, son Cesare as his right-hand man, daughter Lucrezia as loving offspring used mercilessly for marriage bait in Rodrigo’s many schemes. Rumour has it Lucrezia was closer to both father and son than was proper. I’m not sure about Rodrigo but Cesare certainly loved his sister very deeply indeed. One real-life slightly risqué painting that might be her exists, by the Venetian artist Bartolomeo Veneto.

What if Cesare commissioned a more daring erotic version for his own bedroom? And that painting found its way to one of Lucrezia’s real-life lovers, the Venetian intellectual and churchman Pietro Bembo whose palace still stands by the Rialto to this day? And that same painting later came to fascinate and tempt men who came after, Lord Byron and the artist Modigliani among them?

Well, there’s my ‘what if?’ Now for something to do with it. I know… a riddle. The famed portrait is lost somewhere in Venice in mysterious circumstances following the disappearance and presumed death of its last owner. A young, impoverished Englishwoman is due to inherit it, if only she can find the thing. And to do that she – and Arnold – need to unravel a cryptic riddle left in the form of a forged entry from the diary of that notorious Venetian Casanova.

There’s the heart of this story. Arnold and his new friend Lizzie Hawker need to locate eight places in Venice that will lead them to the elusive Lucrezia. All but one of them real. All but one of them obscure, hidden, strange, occasionally creepy, and never found by the hordes of tourists crowding San Marco and the Rialto.

I was, thank goodness, able to visit Venice relatively freely for the vast amount of research this book required. What I hope I’ve created is a sophisticated entertainment that will transport readers to this amazing place in the lagoon, there to enjoy a light-hearted tale of history, culture, mystery, and a fair smattering of food too as Arnold and Lizzie set out on their quest.

The best way for me to escape the dreary misery of lockdown was to lighten up, even if only in my own head, and try to deliver a tale that was amusing, perhaps a little educational, and mostly swayed away from the dark. I hope it’s as much fun to read as it was to write.

DEBS: Oh, the food David describes in these books is mouthwatering! And Arnold Clover is my new favorite amateur detective. Now I just need to sign up for Italian lessons..

READERS, where was your favorite place to armchair travel during lockdown?

What We're Writing: Rhys Researches

RHYS BOWEN:  For once I am actually not writing. Earlier this month I sent off my latest stand-alone, ISLAND OF LOST BOYS, to my editor, did the copy edits on my next Georgie called PERIL IN PARIS, and the page proofs on ALL THAT IS HIDDEN, the next Molly book, written with daughter Clare.

Clare should have been here now, staying with me in California while we work on the next Molly book, but alas she is stuck at home with Covid. After being so careful all this time her husband had to take a group of students to El Salvador where they promptly all got Covid. He waited until he tested negative to fly home but then still gave it to Clare.

So we are both working remotely but we’re still in the hunter/gatherer stage: this is the part of the writing process that I love—searching the internet, finding out new and exciting things that can be part of our story and deciding how to weave them in. The new book is set in the Catskills—in the fledgling bungalow colonies. At that time the exodus of Jews from the city to escape the summer heat and disease was still new. There were as yet no resorts. Enterprising Jewish  farmers offered rooms or built primitive outbuildings at reasonable rents and quickly saw the possibilities.  Anyone who could escaped from the packed conditions of city life, where typhoid and other diseases ran rampant during the steamy summer.

And so we decided that Molly’s neighbors Sid and Gus would have to visit Sid’s grandparents who live in the Catskills. That was the starting point: and then we discovered the artist’s colony to which they would obviously be drawn. A theater director Clare knows is putting on summer stock in a theater in the Catskills, AND the theater was in existence in those days. Perhaps Sid wants to be in the show.

When I was in New York for the Edgars I met up with an old friend who is well-connected in the New York Jewish community. We’ve had fun adventures over the years, once being locked in Gramercy Park and having to be rescued. She’s offered to help with research and vet what we write. “Well of course I know Grossinger’s grandson if that helps,” she said. She will also be invaluable in getting the tone right—Sid’s family coming from Germany two generations ago , educated, worldly and well-established yet other characters new immigrants and much more conservative in their religion and habits.

Clare’s research has turned up other gems. A newly formed state park near where we want to set the story. Also near was a bluestone mine—an early form of cement vital for New York street building. An environmental theme, we ask ourselves?

And so the pieces of the story come together from the research. We already knew what the main thread of plot would be (not going to tell you). But this is how environment will enrich and twist the plot. Such fun.  I start out knowing where I want to set a book, who might be murdered and why. Then I do my detailed research. Usually it involves going to the place, walking the streets my heroine will walk and noticing what I see. Sometimes I spot something that will come into the story, maybe change it.  But just soaking in details makes it a richer story: for THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK the basket being lowered from an upstairs window into a boat below and being raised again with the morning newspaper. Little gems you can’t make up. 

For my upcoming WHERE THE SKY BEGINS I visited the old air bases in Lincolnshire, climbed inside a Lancaster Bomber, looked at flight suits, parachutes, read letters home from pilots.

I’m not going to be able to visit the Catskills before we write this which is annoying. I have driven through the area before so I know what it looks like and thank you to Google Earth—I shall be visiting in often, I suspect. Also I have Clare to do the lion’s share of research now. We know about the bungalows and the kochalayn (the bungalows that had their own kitchen!) But would they have played mahjong in those days? Would there have been entertainers? Maybe a family’s entertainment is so good that others come to watch and a tent is set up and…

A challenge will be how we bring Molly, good Irish girl, into this Jewish setting.

So we get ready to start writing. And dear Reds and readers—if any of you have bungalow memories or heard your grandparents talking about their time in the Borscht Belt, please do share.

Drum roll: Rhys Bowen's THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK, one for the ages...

HALLIE EPHRON: Mystery, romance, World War II, and humor… that alchemical mix makes a Rhys Bowen novel and she’s done it again with The Venice Sketchbook, hot off the presses today.

BREAKING NEWS! The Venice Sketchbook just got a STARRED review in Library Journal!

We’re all thrilled, and the description has me chomping at the bit to read it:

Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.

Irresistible… All I need to see is Venice and I’m hooked. I can’t wait to hear all about the book and how it came about. Rhys, for your loyal readers, what will feel familiar and what will feel new?

RHYS BOWEN: What I hope readers will enjoy in this book is the sense of place, being in Venice, experiencing so many aspects of the city. What might be different? It’s not a classic mystery, a crime and whodunnit.It takes place in three time periods, which is always a challenge to write. The mystery is a dying woman entrusting her great niece with three keys and a sketchbook of Venice and the layers of a hidden past being peeled away one by one.

HALLIE: You’re an artist yourself. Do you take along a sketchbook with you when you travel? Did that factor into writing this book?

RHYS: I always take my sketch books when I travel and the publisher has actually used one of my sketches on the hardcover of the book. So I suppose I was drawn to a woman who was an artist and who captured her experiences in sketches. And when you are sketching you notice details. I take pictures of door knockers, for example, to paint later.

HALLIE: Venice! My favorite city in the world, by the way. Me and a gazillion other seasoned tourists. It’s a city that cherishes its history. You can research what it looked like in the 1940s by walking around there today… or can you? (We all know you’re a stickler for accuracy.)

RHYS: My favorite city too. I have been there many times and every time it takes my breath away. I have a book of photographs comparing the same sites in 1900 and the present and really very little has changed, so I really could walk where my heroine walked and experience exactly what she saw.

Some businesses are still there—the bookshop in the street of the Assassins, Florian’s Tea Room, the Daniele of course, and the little shops that serves tramezzini—the small open sandwiches. I created a fictitious hotel for Juliet to stay in 1928 but it’s in a real place, and the hotel where Caroline stays in 2001 is where I love to stay—the Pensione Accademia with its lovely garden.But I actually did a lot of real research, including at the Correr Library, attached to the Correr museum in St. Mark’s Square.

Two librarians kept finding more and more books for me on Venice in the Thirties and Forties. They were all in Italian, of course, so my reading went rather slowly, but I got around this by finding the sections and pages I needed and having John photograph them for later study. The librarians were so enthusiastic that I had to say “Please, I think we have enough here!"

HALLIE: Still you had to go there for this book… didn’t you? How did that affect the story you had in mind to write?

RHYS: Any excuse to go back to Venice! And I always have to revisit the place I’m writing about, just to notice what my heroine sees and smells and experiences. I was there for one of the big religious festivals and realized how important they still are to Venice so these festivals become important points in the story. Also I was over on the Lido (The island with lovely houses and hotels and the Venice beach and casino) and I spotted a villa I wanted to use. So then I decided it belonged to a Contessa, and she became an important character.

As far as plotting ahead was concerned, I knew my heroine had to survive but I had no idea what she would have to go through. It was really harrowing to write about!

HALLIE: I love the idea of a character unearthing secrets from the past. Did you know what Great-Aunt Lettie’s secrets were before you started writing, or did you unearth them as you went along?

RHYS: Not all. And I can’t tell you here or I’d spoil the story. I knew the main thrust but people along the way asked her to undertake certain dangerous things I hadn’t expected.

HALLIE: What is it about World War II that has proven such fertile ground for your fiction?

RHYS: To me it is the last time when we had a sense of good versus evil. We knew we had to stop the evil before it swallowed the world. Everyone was involved, most wanting to do their part, others trying to profit and so many people not entirely evil or good. It was a time of heightened emotions, of great and small dangers and there are still so many stories waiting to be told.

I suppose I am so fascinated because I was born in the middle of it and my life was affected by it for years to come. I didn’t meet my father until I was three. He was out in Egypt and the Palestine. After the war it was common to see bombed buildings everywhere. Rationing went on until 1953. Of course the dangers were even greater in occupied Europe, which is why I’ve set two books there now. Ordinary people had to take extraordinary risks, putting their lives on the line, and often nobody knew about their bravery… as is the case with Juliet.

HALLIE: I love the way you write characters who are just on the outside, looking in. Fish trying to swim in waters that are just out of their league. Does that description fit Caroline as well?

RHYS: You’re right. I think my characters succeed because they are to a certain extent outsiders. Sometimes they are outside their own environment, like Juliet and Molly Murphy. Other times they don’t entirely fit in, like Lady Georgie who has a royal father and a lower class mother and thus feels herself slightly an outsider in both.

But such characters make great observers because everything is new to them and they have to be alert to survive. And Caroline—at the beginning of the story we might think she is living a normal, typical life: husband, child, job. But then this security is taken from her and it is only in Venice that she finds what she really wants.

HALLIE: Were you still writing this book when Covid hit? Did it make lockdown any easier, having such a fabulous fictional place to go via your manuscript?

RHYS: I must admit I gazed at my photographs so many times, usually with a sigh. Especially the videos and live shots. There is one taken from a motor boat when the bells are ringing. That always brought tears to my eyes. Bells are so typical of Venice. It should have been a gift to be able to focus and write without interruptions but in fact I found it hard to be creative. Having this worry always lurking in the background was like carrying a load on my shoulders, and thinking through muslin. I expect you felt the same way.

Luckily I had written half the book before lock down so I knew where I was going. And of course having a deadline is a great motivator!

HALLIE: Where can your fans find you to hear firsthand about this fabulous new book?

RHYS: I have already done most of my Zooms and interviews by the time the book is published but fans can visit the Poisoned Pen archives to see my interview with Barbara from last Saturday. Hank and I are chatting tomorrow, April 14, at Authors on the Air. I don’t have the link yet but will put it on my Facebook page. And next Sunday, April 18, I am doing a Facebook Live Zoom chat with Cara Black at Book Passage (bookpassage.com) at 4 p.m. I hope to see some of you there.

And thank you for hosting me, Hallie, and for all the wonderful support I feel from the Jungle Reds and our community.

HALLIE: I confess, if I I were traveling to Venice for "research" my sketchbook would be "scratch and sniff." Because the food! But also the light. The reflections. But capturing the excitement of meandering down a little side alley and emerging into one of Venice's gorgeous squares? For all that and more, read The Venice Sketchbook. 

Do you keep a travel journey or sketchbook?

Rhys is still Dreaming of Venice

RHYS BOWEN:

I have just finished my least-favorite part of the writing process—the dreaded copy-edits. You’d think the process should be fairly straight-forward. Your editor has made the editorial suggestions—can we see more emotion in this scene? Could we speed up the tempo here? And you have addressed those.  The copy edits are (or should be) just the polishing: one word overused in a section, one sentence not quite clear, no serial comma (God forbid). So sometimes they are a breeze.

Other times they can be a nightmare. A copy editor who is a frustrated writer and who changes sentences. Then it is necessary to write STET in large letters. A copy editor who forgets that it’s fiction and points out a tiny point of history (like, in my book, she could find no reference to German gunboats being hidden in the Venice lagoon. I replied that they were allies. A German gunboat would have been welcomed, especially during the invasion of Greece and Albania.)

One is tempted to reply either “It’s fiction, dammit,” or “does it bloody well matter if it was early closing day on Wednesday therefore she wouldn’t have done her shopping then!!!!”

But it is done. I have survived with only a few more gray hairs. Now it’s just the proof reads during which the writer decides that every sentence is clumsy and rubbish and should be re-written.

However, on this occasion it was comforting to spend more time in Venice, since we can’t travel this year. I’ll give you a quick trip there too. Oh and I have the most gorgeous cover to share too!

 From THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK.

I tried to find a good spot to sketch the Bridge of Sighs but realized that the best views were from the waterfront side. I retraced my steps to the water front and stood on a small stone bridge sketching the Bridge of Sighs. Several tourists tried to peer over my shoulder. Oh dear. My art skills are certainly not good enough for public scrutiny yet. I hurriedly closed my book and at that moment the great bells from the Camponile rang out. Twelve O’clock. Golly. I’d better get back for lunch or Aunt H. would be worried. I made my way back to St. Marks Square and attempted to retrace my route home.  I must have come out of St. Mark’s Square by a different archway because I didn’t recognize where I was. There had not been a little canal running beside the street when I came in.  I pressed on, in what I hoped was the right general direction. I was just crossing the canal by a little stone bridge when I heard a sound. At first I thought it was a baby crying. It was coming from the canal beneath me. Then I looked down and saw a cardboard box floating past. And from the box came the sound. Not a baby, but what sounded like the mewing of kittens. Someone had thrown a box of kittens into the canal to drown them!

I looked around. Nobody in sight. I couldn’t just let the kittens float away until the box became sodden and they drowned.  I went back to the side of the canal where there was a walkway,  held onto a post and reached out as far as I could. The box was too far away for me to reach and was moving slowly but steadily past. Soon it would pass between tall buildings where there was no footpath. There was nothing for it. I put my bag down, took off my hat, held my nose, and jumped in. The water was surprisingly cold. I gasped and swallowed a mouthful, but struck out valiantly for the box. I hadn’t had much opportunity for swimming in England, apart from in the sea at Torquay when one bobbed in the waves and I realized too late that my skirts  had become awfully heavy , clinging to my legs. I tried to hold the box above me as I kicked out for the side. I managed to place it up on the walkway, then tried to climb out. That was when I realized the walkway was a good foot above the water and there were no steps in sight. I had no way out.

My sodden clothing and shoes were pulling me down now and I was tiring fast. I tried to remember the Italian word for help—if I’d ever known it in the first place. What was it in Latin? If only I’d paid more attention to Miss Dear!  I tried to cling to the side but there was nothing to hang onto. Above my head the kittens kept mewing and the box shook as if they might get out at any moment. Then suddenly I heard a noise. The put-put of an approaching motor boat.  It drew level with me and I was afraid it would run me down or go past without seeing me. I released one hand and waved. “Help!” I cried.

            A man’s face appeared over the side. “Dio mio!” he exclaimed. “Momento!” He cut the motor. Strong arms reached down and I was unceremoniously hauled aboard. He stared at me for a moment before saying, “You are English. Si?”

            I nodded. “How did you know?”

            “Only an English girl would be foolish enough to go swimming in a canal,” he said in very proficient English. “Or did you fall in?”

            “I wasn’t swimming. And I didn’t fall in. I jumped in, to save some kittens.”

Will this early encounter in a Venice canal have repercussions later in her life? You'll have to read it to find out. It is published April 13.

And do share: where are you dreaming of at the moment?

Rhys on writing as therapy

RHYS BOWEN: Like many of you I'm finding it hard to concentrate at this time. There always seems to be that element of worry lurking at the back of my mind. I know I shouldn't check recent covid spikes etc but I do. Then I worry more. And I have to turn on the news, just for a few minutes, and there are protest marches and white nationalists and then I'm even more anxious.

And, like you, I'm stuck at home. Nowhere to go except a daring dash to the grocery store at seven in the morning. No, I'm not risking restaurants yet, or anything else except for our daily walks out into the marshes or around the lagoon. Every other year I'm in Europe at this time, sitting in a piazza in Italy enjoying a plate of bruschetta and an Aperol spritz, or in France, having my morning coffee and a pain au chocolat. Or in England with a full English breakfast in front of me. And this year--nowhere.

So writing for me has been a great escape. I have just finished my book set in Venice, that now has a title: THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK.  I'm really sorry I'm done with it because being able to escape to Venice every day has been therapeutic for me. Every time i pour over the map or my photos I'm back there, having my breath taken away by the beauty every single time.  So I thought I'd take you there too, for a few minutes of escape:  Here is some of the opening sequence:  We are in Venice, 1928

We are here. We came out of the Santa Lucia train station and stood at the top of a flight of steps.

“Ecco Il Canale Grande!” Aunt Hortensia said in dramatic fashion, spreading out her arms as if she was on stage and had created the scene for my benefit. My Italian was limited to please, thank you and good day but I understood that this was the Grand Canal. Only it didn’t look very grand. It was wide, to be sure, but the buildings on the other side were rather ordinary. And it looked dirty too. The smell that greeted my nostrils was not particularly appetizing. It was a watery sort of smell with a hint of fish and decay.  I didn’t have much chance to study my surroundings, however, as we were immediately besieged by porters. It was a little alarming to have men fighting over us in a strange language, snatching our bags and bundling us into a gondola, whether we wanted one or not. But as Aunt Hortensia confessed, we had no alternative. We could not have managed all that luggage on one of their water buses they call vaporetti.  Of course I was thrilled to be in a gondola, even though the gondolier was not a handsome young Italian who sang love songs, but rather a grim faced man with a paunch.

As we came around a bend the Grand Canal became incredibly grand. On either side of us were amazing palaces, marble coated, or in shades of rich pink with arched Moorish windows. They appeared to float on the water in a way that was quite surreal—I wanted to get out my sketch book right away. It was lucky that I didn’t as the amount of traffic on the canal made the boat rock alarmingly.  The gondolier muttered what must have been Venetian swear words.

We were moving along quite nicely for a boat rowed with one oar but the canal seemed awfully long.

“Ecco Il Ponte Rialto,” Aunt Hortensia exclaimed, pointing at a bridge that crossed the canal ahead of us, rising up in a great arch, as if suspended by magic. It appeared to have some sort of building on it because a row of windows winked in the afternoon sunshine as we approached.  I wondered if Aunt H. intended to speak in only that language from now on. If so conversation was liable to be rather one sided.

However this fear was dispelled as she now produced her Baedecker and began to inform me about each building that we passed: “On your left the Palazzo Barzizza. Note the thirteenth century facades, and that large building is the Palazzo Mocenigo where Lord Byron once stayed.…..  This continued until an overcrowded vaporetto pulled out from its jetty, our boat rocked again and she almost lost the book into the murky depths.

At the moment I began feeling a bit queasy, another bridge came into sight, this one a more flimsy wooden footbridge,  spanning the canal at a greater height. I expected Aunt H. to say “Ecco Ponte something or other,” but instead she said, “Ah, the Academia Bridge. Now we are almost at our destination. That’s good. I was beginning to feel rather sea-sick.”

“You mean canal sick, don’t you?” I asked and she actually smiled.

And one more picture, because we all need cheering up at the moment, don't we? 

Stay safe! Chins up! This too shall pass. xxxxx Rhys

Aqua Alta

RHYS BOWEN:  Isn't it strange how often something we are writing suddenly echoes an event in real life? I have written about murders and then read in the paper of one that was just as I described it.  And how many books have been written about pandemica? Eeek!
And now a scene in my new book (called The Venice  Diary/Sketchbooks/Keys/Legacy/Secret?Something. I'll let you know what marketing finally decides) could have been taken directly from recent headlines.  It is a time of Aqua Alta--high water. When the high tide from the lagoon rises over the streets and into first floor homes.

Venice has always flooded in the winter, but not badly until now. When I wrote this scene I tried to think what it would be like to have to wade through water to  get home, but the Venetians take it entirely as a normal event. If you see newscasts during the recent Aqua Alta you'll see people sitting on stools in bars with water below them, shops open with a foot of water inside.

My heroine, a new arrival in Venice doesn't find it so easy.

Here's an excerpt:

We managed to skirt around the side of the square without getting too wet and both ordered a bowl of minestrone soup, which warmed us up nicely. I was so glad that I could finally enjoy food again. We finished our soup, ordered coffee and a pastry and still the rain hadn’t eased up. Then we were conscious of a loud siren, blaring out over the city.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Aqua alta!” a man at the next table said, waving his arms excitedly. He got up in a hurry, left some coins on the table and ran out, his coat over his head.

“What does that mean?” Henry asked.

“I think it means that some of the streets get flooded. We should go home while we can.”

Henry nodded. He insisted on paying the bill. “Will you be able to get home all right?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine. I expect the traghetto is still operating,” I said. So we parted company. My raincoat and scarf were soon soaked through. The wind had come up, driving the rain in different directions, first hitting me in the face and then in the back of the neck. I reached the traghetto dock and found the gondola tied up with its cover on.  “Blast,” I muttered. I was now in for a long walk up to the Accademia Bridge before I could cross the Grand Canal.

I slogged on, feeling more and more frustrated as there is no such thing as a direct route in Venice. I had to retrace my steps to cross a canal, then constantly choose left or right instead going forward. Finally I reached the Accademia Bridge and had to battle both wind and rain, clinging to the railing as I made my way up the fifty two steps and the down the other side. When I came down to the little piazza it was already flooded. I waded through the icy water, feeling it lapping over my ankles. Other people trudged through it as if it was only a minor inconvenience--a woman carrying a laden shopping basket, another pushing a stroller with the child suspended just above the water level. 

I was now so cold I was shivering uncontrollably. Campo Santo Stefano loomed ahead of me. Not too far now. I stumbled into an unseen drain and fell forward. I would have gone flat on my face into the icy water if a passing man hadn’t grabbed me and hauled me to my feet again. I passed a bar and was amazed to see men sitting on stools, drinking and smoking while water lapped below them. It seemed that nobody else cared too much about the rising waters.

“Madonna!” Signora Bertolini exclaimed when I came into the flat and stood in the hallway with water dripping from my clothing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I am making your floor wet.” I tried to unbutton my coat but my fingers were numb with cold.

She came up to me. “You poor child,” she said, and started unbuttoning my coat for me. “Let’s put it over the bathtub to dry,” she said. “And your shoes. So the aqua alta is already upon us, yes?”

I can't tell you what happens next,  but a major plot twist. That's one of the challenges of giving sneak previews: I want my readers to be surprised when they read the book. And in this book I've given myself an additional challenge: It takes place in four time periods and I want to reveal the story, bit by bit in each of them, constantly surprising the reader. I've written two and a half stories and then I'll have to find a way to put them together. Maybe it will be like the Tuscan Child and I'll have to lay out one set of chapters in my front hall and then decide where to add the chapters from other time periods (and pray there is no sudden draft!)

What do you think about books written in more than one time period? Does the jumping around annoy you?

What We're Writing: Rhys tackles two times

RHYS BOWEN: Hi, Rhys here, deep in the throes of my new novel that will be called THE VENICE LEGACY, SKETCHBOOKS, SECRET, KEYS or whatever marketing thinks will sell books. It's set in various time periods: 1928, 1938, 1939-45 and 2001.  So a lot of jumping around which for the author is a challenge as I don't want to confuse my readers. I don't want anyone to say, "Wait--where are we now?"  So it all has to be done smoothly, with two stories unfolding at the same time, one giving clues to the other. And... it's not easy.

I am on one of the chapters that is my present day story. Well, not exactly present day but 2001.  Why that year, you ask? Because it had to be realistic that a character from WWII could still be alive AND the added drama of the World Trade Center has to play into the character's life and motivation.  And so in my present day story Caroline Grant's husband has gone to New York to enter a fashion competition, stayed there, made a name for himself and now wants equal custody of their son. The son has been with him for the summer but when it comes time to return him there have been excuses-an ear infection and the doctor says he shouldn't fly. And then the Twin Towers....

. The Venice Inheritance/Key/Sketchbooks, Legacy, Secret etc

That year in Venice, Long Ago in Venice. The  (Three) keys to Venice

The first Caroline knew of it was a strange hysterical sobbing that came from the conference room. Intrigued she followed the sound and found people already crowded inside the door, staring at the television screen that sat on a shelf at the far end of the room. One young secretary had her hands to her mouth and was producing great heaving sobs while an older editor had an arm around her shoulder. The others were strangely silent. Caroline stared at the screen, unable to realize immediately what she was seeing. She looked to a colleague.

            “What is it?”

            “The World Trade Centre in New York. Apparently an aeroplane flew into one of the skyscrapers. A big passenger jet. The upper floors are on fire.”

            “How terrible. How sad.”

            Suddenly the girl at the front screamed and pointed. “There’s another one. Look!”

            And they watched in horror as a second passenger jet flew in direct line at the second tower, striking it in a fireball.

            “It can’t be an accident,” someone said.

            “It must be a terrorist attack.”

            “I bet it’s that idiot Osama Bin Laden.”

            “Oh God. How many more of them might there be?”

            Caroline couldn’t speak. She was finding it hard to breathe. My son is in New York, she thought. She hadn’t ever checked where exactly Desiree’s penthouse was in the city. Surely not in the financial district where the towers were. Surely somewhere suitably safe and far away…

            She pushed her way past more people who now blocked the doorway, rushed to her desk and fumbled in her purse for her telephone book. Her hand was trembling so much that she found it hard to dial the number.

            “I’m sorry. All circuits are currently busy” said a mechanical voice. “Please try again later.”

            She tried every fifteen minutes, all night, until about three in the morning the phone at the other end rang. “Hello?” said a sleepy woman’s voice. “What is it?”

            “It’s Caroline Grant,” She gasped out the words. “Is Josh there? And Teddy? You’re all safe?”

            “Oh yes. We’re fine. We’re up in the nineties. Miles away. Josh tried to call you yesterday, after it happened, but nobody could make phone-calls. It was unbelievable, wasn’t it? Surreal, watching those towers fall.”

            “Awful,” Caroline agreed. “Can I speak to Josh, please?”

            “He’s still asleep. Hold on a minute. I’ll wake him for you.”

            Caroline heard her saying “Your ex-wife on the phone, from London. You’d better wake up.”

            Then a long pause and Josh’s voice. “Hey, Cara. We’re fine. I tried to call you. Everything’s okay here. The kids were quite upset when they saw it, but they’ll get over it. Talk to you later, okay?”

            She put down the phone and gave a big sigh of relief. They were fine. Her son was fine. She swallowed back tears. News programs on TV broadcast almost incessant updates. The Pentagon hit. Another plane crashing in a field in Pennsylvania. All flights canceled. All transportation stalled. Saudi nationals responsible… and yes, it was that idiot Osama Bin Laden behind it.

            Again she waited patiently to see when flights would resume. They’d all be overbooked, of course. All those people trapped in New York, waiting to get out. Finally she made contact with Josh. “When do you think you can fly again?Teddy’s missing school.”

            “I was going to call you, “Josh said. “Teddy’s been having nightmares. We took him to Desiree’s shrink. He says the child has a real terror of planes right now and shouldn’t fly for a while. So we’ll find a school for him here.”

You might want to ask what this might have to do with Venice: well, you'll just have to wait for the book to come out next year to find out!

An Ode to Venice, by Rhys

RHYS BOWEN: It's always an emotional time for me when I'm about to start a new book. Anticipation? Fear? Dying to get started but not daring to put those first words on paper?  Is this the same for all writers?  I toy with the first sentence in my head for weeks. Then the first paragraph. I write out time lines and character descriptions and relationships and things that have to happen. Oh, and I have been doing my background research for months--lots of notes and photographs.
Then one day, I write that first sentence. And then I feel that the book is real.

In the case of my new book--working title THE VENICE SKETCHBOOKS--it was an idea I have toyed with for several years, but never had an opportunity to write it. A story that takes place in Venice over many decades... 1928, then 1938, then 39-46 and then 2001. A story of a woman's secret life that her family never knew about and will only be revealed if her great niece can unlock the secrets of two sketchbooks and a box of keys.

So I did what any good writer has to do: I went to Venice last summer. I stayed at the Pensione my aunt always favored: The Pensione Accademica. I spent a day in the library of the Correr museum, surrounded by stacks of books (all in Italian!) . I walked up and down certain areas, traversed them by boat, looking for the house where my heroine will live, and the palazzo where the man she loves lives, and the places they will meet.

Venice is not new to me. When I was a teenager my parents rented a small villa in Treviso, about half an hour outside Venice. Every day they drove to the Venice parking garage, handed me and my brother some money and said, "See you at five o'clock". And the world was ours. We wandered, tried every gelateria, ate pasta and watermelon and had a great time. I took my eldest daughter when she graduated from high school. John and I have been back three or four times since. But every time I find something new, I try a new dish... spaghetti cooked in octopus ink? veal with tuna? 
This time all my senses were fine tuned. What am I hearing? Seeing? Smelling? All fodder for my book.

So I was about to start in earnest when the the latest aqua alta struck last week. Second highest ever. And I realized with a jolt that I might be writing an ode to something that will not be there forever. A somber thought. I hope I bring it to life for my readers. I hope I do it justice.

Here is a snippet from the prologue, which is as far as I have come so far:

May 21, 1928

I was awoken by more bells. It seems there are an awful lot of churches in this city. Nobody is allowed to sleep late! I went to the window and opened the shutters that Aunt H had insisted on closing against mosquitos. The sky was a perfect pale blue and the sound of bells echoed over the whole city. Swallows darted and swooped across the sky like tiny Maltese crosses, while seagulls screeched and below on the courtyard pigeons strutted and cooed. A city of bells and birds.

After a breakfast of rolls, cheese and fruit as well as coffee instead of tea, we went out exploring. Luckily Aunt H has visited several times before and knew her way or I should have become hopelessly lost in minutes. It is a complete maze of alleys, canals, bridges. Nothing is straight or straightforward. Some streets end at canals with no way across. To go right one must first go left. But Aunt H. led us unerringly to St Mark’s Square. Gosh. I think for the first time in my eighteen years my breath was taken away. I had never seen anything so magnificent as that great open space with the church at one end and the bell tower rising impossibly tall on one side. There were outdoor cafes with a small orchestra playing but Aunt H. declare we had too much to see to waste time with pastries


RHYS: So, dear friends, I need help. I need a title! It has to do with Venice Secrets, a Venice inheritance, Venice long ago... I've toyed with so many. Any flash of brilliance will be warmly accepted and I'll thank you in the dedication page!