The Renaissance Club
by Rachel
Dacus
GENRE: Speculative Women's Fiction
BLURB:
Would you give up everything, even the time in which you live,
to be with your soul mate? That's what young art historian and teacher May Gold
must decide when she slips through time's folds to meet the man of her dreams
and the subject of her master's thesis -- fiery 17th century genius artist
Gianlorenzo Bernini.
In her fantasies May is in his arms, the wildly adored partner of the man who
steered Renaissance art into the Baroque. In reality, she has just landed in
Rome with her stodgy boyfriend and teaching colleagues for a tour of Italy. She
yearns to unleash her passion and creative spirit.
When the floor under the gilded dome of St Peter's basilica rocks under her
feet, she finds herself in the year 1624, staring straight into Bernini's eyes.
Their immediate and powerful attraction grows every time she meets him during
the tour. Passion blossoms, but history says they have no future. Can May
thread her way through time, and will she take a perilous risk to begin a
magical, exciting new life?
This time travel romance is perfect for lovers of Italy, art, and love stories.
Excerpt:
May
changed her mind about going into the church and decided instead to climb the
tall hill of Assisi and find a shop or two. She passed a small shop tucked
under the overhanging, geranium-strewn balcony. Its window bore a sign:
“Farmacia.” Pharmacy. She stopped. A morning-after pill was an over-the-counter
item in Europe, probably here in Assisi too.
She
ventured inside. It was a small place, a new shop built inside the ancient
stone walls. She looked around at displays of mementos, purses, and perfumes. A
small counter had a sign that said “Farmacia.”
She
was about to call for the proprietor, when the light inside the shop changed.
Glass bottles rattled on their shelves. She looked around and saw the
shopkeeper emerge. Their gazes held. Earthquakes were familiar in Assisi, and
could be frightening after their huge quake. The ground settled again, and he
smiled and shrugged in that very Italian way.
George
called them folds in time. She didn’t feel them any differently than normal
quakes, but they made her unsteady. She touched the counter. Her mind raced
somewhere else. Could he possibly appear here? She felt the doorway appearing
at her sides and overhead.
A
glimmer all around. Just step through.
Bernini
came out of the shadows looking different than last time. He had circles under
his eyes, and his skin was paler. He wore a flowing white shirt and a black
jacket, as he often did, but the slashes in the sleeves were frayed, and the
jacket was dusty, as if it had been through many travels.
Guest
Post:
Hardwired
for Story
Are
our brains hardwired to love stories? Story
Genius author Lisa Cron thinks so. She cites scientific evidence that
humans are neurologically inclined to love stories because we want to learn how
to solve life problems. Not just how to survive, but how to live and live well
with each other.
The
minute I read about this, I realized it was true. I’ve loved stories ever since
I picked up my first Oz book, followed quickly by all the rest of them, then Little Women, and then all the Nancy
Drews.
Stories
present challenges in living we can identify with and learn from, as the main
character encounters and overcomes them. Contemplating the story I wanted to
tell in The Renaissance Club, I posed
myself this question—if I could go back in time and meet one of the fantastic
artists whose works I encountered in Italy, who would I like to meet, and what
would I want to learn from them? Would it be Michelangelo or Bernini or Raphael,
and what would I ask them about living a creative life and making art? Would I
feel drawn to them in other ways?
That’s
how I gave birth to May Gold as my main character. She’s an art historian with a
passion for beauty and a creative soul she longs to unleash, but she’s
uncertain of her abilities and doubts that she could ever measure up to the
greatest artist she admires, Bernini. She lots of questions. And she’s lucky
enough to slip through a fold in time and meet that living, breathing genius. She
gets to ask lots of questions, and to find out that geniuses are compelling and
difficult to live with. And thereby hangs a tale … the tale of The Renaissance Club.
If
we are all hardwired to love a story, it’s hard to imagine we wouldn’t want to
step through time and meet people from history, see what another place and era
really looks like. If you could safely travel to any place in time, where would
you go, and who would you want to meet. How might getting to do that change
your life?
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Rachel Dacus is
a poet, essayist, and novelist who writes about love and relationships, with a
touch of the supernatural. Love and history are the themes of her debut novel, The
Renaissance Club, a tale of romance between a young art historian and her
hero, the fiery 17th century Italian sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini. Praise for
her novel — “enchanting, rich, and romantic” — describes the kinds of love and
adventure stories Rachel enjoys, preferably set in exotic places. She has
traveled to Italy and India and plans to expand her journeys beyond countries
that start with the letter “I”.
She’s the
daughter of a bipolar rocket engineer who worked on missiles during the
race-to-space 1950’s. He was also an accomplished painter.
Her interest in
Italy was ignited by a course in Renaissance art history that culminated in
tour of northern Italy. She’s been hooked on Italy ever since. Her essay on
Italy, motherhood, and infertility was anthologized in Italy, a Love Story:
Women Write About the Italian Experience.
Dacus shows off
her versatility in four poetry collections. Her newest is Arabesque.
Three other collections are: Gods of Water and Air, Femme au Chapeau,
and Earth Lessons. She raises funds for arts, human service, and
healthcare organizations and takes walks with her way-too-smart Silky Terrier.
Find out more
about Rachel Dacus and The
Renaissance Club:
Giveaway:
$20 Amazon/BN GC
Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning.
8 comments:
Thanks for hosting!
How did you come up for the idea of the cover of the book. Congrats on the release. Bernie Wallace BWallace1980(at)hotmail(d0t)com
Thanks so much for hosting my giveaway, book, and article!
Thanks for the congrats, Bernie!
I came up with the concept of the cover by asking the designer for a woman walking away from the viewer into another era in time, and indicating that a scene in one of the locations in the book -- maybe Rome or Venice -- would be a good landscape to show a different time period.
Great excerpt, I enjoyed reading it.
Who is your favorite character in your book? Congrats on the release. Bernie Wallace BWallace1980(at)hotmail(d0t)com
Nice looking cover!
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