Rhys Revisits New York

 RHYS BOWEN:  Today's post has a New York theme!. 

Before I show you what I’m writing I have had some amazing things happen to me recently. But the most amazing thing is happening right now. THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK  is on a billboard in Times Square. Can you believe it? When I was a teenager I dreamed of being an actress and would have loved my name in lights on Broadway. Well… finally! Who’d have thought it?

Anyway, now back to reality and work. I am currently busy writing my second Molly Murphy book with my daughter Clare. She came to stay for a couple of weeks and then we spent a week together in San Diego while we plotted and now we’re about 100 pages into the story. Clare’s a little worried because nobody has died yet, but I tell her that I’ve written several books in which nobody dies in the first hundred pages. Other dramatic things happen, and we’re leading up to a big murder scene, so all is well.

I thought I’d share a little about how the book begins. Poor Molly--just when she seems settled and all is going well, I do like to throw that curveball at her!  Here is a snippet from the start of the book. Daniel takes Molly out for a walk and springs a big surprise on her (not going to tell you what it is), then this follows:

We walked down the right side of the street on the wide sidewalk past the 5th Avenue brownstones. On the other side of Ninth Street Daniel stopped at an impressive flight of marble steps with a wrought iron railing leading up to a white door framed with a decorated arch.

“Let’s pay a call, shall we?” Daniel lifted Liam out of the pram and into my arms then climbed the steps and rang the bell.

“Wait, Daniel,” I called after him. “Who are we visiting? You should have warned me. I’m not suitably dressed. A stroll, you said.”

Daniel looked back and smiled. “You look fine,” he said. “Don’t worry.

“I came up with steps to stand  beside him and stood rather nervously on the stoop. Really, I like a surprise but this was going too far. Was Sheriff that high a position that Daniel would now know people who lived in 5th Avenue houses like this?  Had we been invited to tea and here was I in my usual two piece costume and not a tea dress. It had probably never occurred to Daniel that women like to know in advance what to wear for every occasion. Honestly, men can be infuriating. But it was too late to turn back now.

The door was answered by a maid who didn’t show any surprise at seeing us. “You must be Captain and Mrs. Sullivan,” she said, giving us a shy smile as she dropped a curtsey. “You are expected, please come in. I’m Mary.” We walked into the front hall and Daniel took off his hat and hung it on the hat stand, then helped me off with my cloak and hung it up as well. The marble floor echoed as I set Liam down and he stomped his foot experimentally and headed toward the staircase in front of us.

“Shh. Liam come here.” I hurriedly took his coat off as well and lifted him up again. The maid waited and then indicated we should follow her through a curtained doorway. “The parlor is through here, sir.”

I walked in with a bright smile on my face expecting to be introduced to the man or lady of the house, but the parlor was empty. A fire burned in the marble fireplace. A table in the center of the room under the electric chandelier held a priceless looking vase and ornate shelves just across from me were full of decorative plates, cups and figurines. I instinctively clutched Liam a little tighter, making sure his hands were safely out of the way and decided that putting him down here was not a good idea.

“The family drawing room is back here, sir.” She led us through another silk curtained doorway and into a comfortable looking drawing room. The room was crowded with delicate embroidered sofas and chairs and carved mahogany tables in many sizes. There was a beautiful Persian rug on the floor and a large tapestry on the far wall. But still no people. My mind spun. Had Daniel brought me to a murder scene? Hardly an outing to bring your son along to. Were the owners of the house very shy?

“The dining room is at the back of the house and bedrooms are upstairs, sir if you will follow me.” Mary continued after a pause as we looked around the empty drawing room. The bedrooms?

“Daniel,” I turned to him in exasperation. “Why are we seeing the bedrooms? Is the owner an invalid?’

“No,” he replied, already heading toward the stairs.

“Daniel!” I called after him. “What is going on? Whose house is this.”

He turned to me with a big smile. “Yours.” He put his arms around both Liam and me. “Ours. Welcome home, Mrs. Sullivan!”

RHYS: How have they managed to move into this big and beautiful house? Has Daniel become a crooked cop? Is he taking bribes?  You'll have to read the book to find out. Our working title is   ALL THAT IS HIDDEN.

So, dear Reds and readers, would you be thrilled if your husband suddenly sprang a lovely new house on you?

How Much of Ourselves....

 RHYS BOWEN: one of the great thrills about writing the Venice Sketchbook (apart from going to Venice, strictly for research purposes of course), was that the publisher used one of my own sketches as part of the cover. There it is, inside the dust cover. I know I’ve had many books published and I still get a thrill from seeing them on a bookstore shelves, but this is a special excitement because it’s not my professional skill, but my amateur hobby.

I have always drawn and painted. In my teens I would paint dramatic landscapes with dying trees and red sunsets. As an adult I have taken life drawing and lots of watercolor classes. It’s still a medium I am trying to master.  But my greatest joy is taking my sketchbook when we travel and capturing the places we visit. When I look at those sketches I am taken back to the place where I painted them so much more vividly than a photograph would have done.

It struck me recently that my recent characters have been artists: Hugo in the Tuscan Child went to Florence to study art. Juliet and Caroline in The Venice Sketchbook are both artists. Is this me living vicariously? 

And it got me thinking about what other personal details I have given to my characters: Evan shared my Welsh heritage. I have never been an Irish immigrant or related to the royal family but my series heroines do have some things in common with me: Molly Murphy is feisty with a strong sense of justice--very much like me. Lady Georgie tends to be clumsy when stressed. Again like me. And they both wind up with a roguish Irishman with unruly dark hair. Interesting. My husband is quarter Irish, related to Irish nobility and with the striking features of the Black Irish and was very handsome with dark wavy hair when I first met him.

So how about you, Reds? Have you given your characters any of your skills, talents, hobbies? Have you given them professions you wish you had tried yourself? 

I know that food is important to Lucy and Hallie and that translates to your books. It’s funny but some of my books (The Venice Sketchbook, The Tuscan Child, Above the Bay of Angels) have a heavy focus on food and cooking and I’ve received letters asking for recipes and whether I am a cook. The honest truth is that I love to eat but I really don’t enjoy cooking much.

Julia, did you ever think of becoming an Episcopal priest?

And have you given them any of your own characteristics, strengths or weaknesses?

Confession time!

HALLIE EPHRON: In all of my books there are echoes of me-ness. Absolutely.

Professional organizer Emily in CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR is a former teacher who loved teaching but got burned out by all the testing. That’s completely me. She lives basically where I live, eats what I eat, wears what I wear, and drives what I drive. She’s married to a guy who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. DING DING DING!

On the other hand, I can’t imagine helping other people get organized since I’ve got my hands full organizing myself.

JENN McKINLAY: What a great question, Rhys! I love that your sketch was included in your book. I do think I give my characters bits and pieces of me. A love of pastry leaps to mind in the cupcake series. Of course, a love of libraries is in the library series. And my love of travel comes out in my rom-coms and my mysteries - Ireland, France, and Italy, in Paris is Always a Good Idea, for example. That is probably the attribute that is found in most of my books that comes from my own wanderlust. Where does Jenn want to go? I wonder if I can sell a romcom set in Japan since that is my next big trip...I hope, I hope, I hope.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Never been called to the priesthood, Rhys, but I am a cradle Episcopalian, and my love for (and sometimes exasperation with) my church is definitely a strong thread in my writing. I feel I went the other way when creating Clare - I tried to make her more of my opposite. She loves coffee, while I drink only tea (but we both use too much sugar.) She’s very physically daring, and I’m not. She cooks as a hobby, while I, now that I no longer have to make meals for five every night, am scarcely touching the oven and rangetop.

When I started writing the series, I was just a few years older than Clare, and I did feel like her in many ways. At this point, I’ve shot well past Russ’s age, and so I’m starting to resemble him a lot more! Next step, I become a senior citizen activist, like his mother.

Oh, and for those who want to know about the sex-on-the-kitchen table scene… I’ll never tell. ;-)

RHYS: Julia, there have been some interesting experimental scenes conducted as research in this household over the years too. My lips are also sealed.

LUCY BURDETTE: You nailed it with the food question, Rhys. I love to eat and talk about food and write about it too. My husband will tell you that it’s Hayley Snow who’s pushed me to be a better cook, rather than the other way around. You may have noticed that there are a lot of pets on Houseboat Row--and that Hayley is devoted to her cat Evinrude. Absolutely true for me too, I have a powerful pet gene inherited from my mother. My two earlier series had a lot of me in them as well. I aspired desperately to be a great golfer, and gave that (and a lot more talent) to Cassie. And Rebecca was a clinical psychologist who attended the Congregational church. All me of course!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I started writing Duncan and Gemma, I had a lot of empathy with Gemma's situation. During those early writing years, I went through a divorce, as both Gemma and Duncan had, and was taking care of my daughter, as Gemma was Toby. But I very deliberately wanted Gemma to be more outspoken and confident. (Not to mention taller and thinner…) Since then I've put my characters in places I loved and have lived, like Cheshire and Scotland. I've given them dogs and cats (my animal loving gene) and an interest in food and drink. There is a lot of wish fulfilment--I've written characters who were artists and musicians and professional chefs, all things I would love to be able to do myself! Of course what I really wanted was to be English and live in London, so being able to do that vicariously has been a real gift.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ha. Ha. Nope, the reporters, who are in ALL of my books, are nothing like me. Interesting thing:  when I was writing Prime Time, early early on, main character Charlie had to drive somewhere. I thought, oh, no, she hates driving. ANd my brain said: Are you kidding me? YOU hate driving. Charlie is Charlie. She doesn't have to hate driving. Readers, it was a revelation.  So I allowed Charlie to be a really good driver, and she enjoys it, and that was truly fun. 

But I  also have to say, I consciously make my reporters NOT me.  They do what THEY would do. But being a real-life reporter, I know all the options!

In fact, a character in Her  Perfect Life is SO not me, AT ALL, but I am worried people will think she is. We shall see.

RHYS: So dear friends, who are also writers--do you put parts of yourself into your characters? And dear friends who are readers--do you like to learn from characters' hobbies? Baking recipes? 

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 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