The Reading Cafe Giveaway, and Terrific Review of The Botticelli Affair
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The Reading Cafe Giveaway, and Terrific Review of The Botticelli Affair

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Review of The Botticelli Affair

First, I am participating in The Reading Cafe’s Second Anniversary Celebration: I am donating a copy of  The Love of My (Other) Life and a copy of Far Shore .

Here are the rules:

REMINDER: ALL giveaways require a comment to be eligible for the prize.
1. If you have not previously registered at The Reading Cafe, please register by using the log-in at the top of the page (side bar) or by using one of the social log-ins.
2. If you are using a social log-in, please post your email address with your comment.
3. Please tell us to enter you into the giveaway.
4. LIKE us on FACEBOOK and then click GET NOTIFICATION under ‘liked’ for an additional entry.
5. LIKE us on Twitter for an additional entry.
6. Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY for ebook or US/CANADA only paper copy.
7. Giveaway runs from February 26 to March 3, 2014.

 

Second, the rather wonderful author, book reviewer and blogger Leslie Wright of TicToc and BlogCritics reviewed The Botticelli Affair and had some of her usual insightful comments:

Slatton has done a great job of giving us characters with emotional flaws as well as those that show them as they are in their outward lives. The heat that shimmers between them has you hoping and wondering, what is going to happen. The chance and friendships that spring up are eternal, and the depravity is deadly. You are taken on a journey that gives you a vision of art through the ages, and the men and women responsible. The action is quick and the journey is delicious.

Ms. Wright emailed to say that the review had been picked up by The Seattle Post Intelligencer, a vibrant and distinctive online news forum.

 


READ ON!!!

Favorite new music video: Samantha Fish “Lay it down”
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Favorite new music video: Samantha Fish “Lay it down”

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About a music video: Samantha Fish “Lay it down.”

Sabin says I like this video because it’s about playing cards. True; I spent my entire childhood playing cards, and I can neither confirm nor deny that I can palm a card from my sleeve.

Nonetheless, there are a few genres of music that Sabin, the Munchkin and I all agree on, and blues tops the list.

So here’s my new fave, and what a voice on this talented young woman. Check out her awesome boots, too. I have serious boot envy.

Gratitude, on many levels, for old friends and good reviews
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Gratitude, on many levels, for old friends and good reviews

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A friend from my distant past contacted me recently. She sent a kind email and thanked me for something I’d done for her, all those decades ago.

My service to her was important, even life-changing, I say that honestly. But I also know that she would have found a way to do it without me. She was that kind of person: bright, energetic, personable, poised, competent.

And it was reciprocal. I learned from her. With my modest origins, I was something of an uncut gem in my early 20’s. There were things I simply hadn’t learned, like how to apply make-up and the value of a great haircut. You can get away with some rough shagginess when you’re young like that, but it sure does help in life to sport a slick of polish. My friend took me to her salon and sat me down in a chair and I received my first ever truly great haircut.

Everyone judges a book by its cover, and she helped me to foist a better one. I’m grateful.

At the same time, it felt really good to be acknowledged, to be recognized, for a kindness I had done. I’m sort of used to my good works going unnoticed, or even denigrated. Not by Sabin and my little one,  who are appreciative people, but by others from my past. I suppose I should be enlightened enough to follow the Bhagavad Gita’s advice, and do good things without attachment, simply because they’re there to be done.

But, dang, it does feel super good to be acknowledged and thanked!

In that vein, I happily thank book reviewer Psibabe aka Ashley Perkins of the Game Vortex site for her wonderful, thoughtful, insightful, and well-written review of my first novel Immortal. Perkins had read Fallen and some of my other novels and liked them, so she went back to read Immortal. Game Vortex is a big international gaming site, and I’m delighted to have the exposure. Good reviews feel pretty great!

So to Ashley Perkins and all the other book reviewers who have taken the time to read my books and write a review: Thank You! I know you have busy lives and yet you’ve done me a splendid service. I appreciate your time and thought.

 

On Sale Now: THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR kindle version 99 cents!
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On Sale Now: THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR kindle version 99 cents!

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CHECK OUT Kindle Nation Daily for details!

And go to Amazon.com for a Special sale on THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR!

Here’s the set-up:

 

Luscious art forger Laila Cambridge has a little vampire problem…. She’s a high-spirited woman with a sordid past, trying to go straight. Enter gorgeous John Bolingbroke, a half-vampire with news of her missing father. From New York through Paris, Amsterdam, and Rome, while fleeing ruthless vampires, Laila searches desperately for her father and a lost painting that holds a coveted secret.
5-Star Amazon Reviews
“Finally – a sexy, fun vampire book that’s intellectually engaging and not geared toward 13 year old girls. I’ve read a lot of the popular vampire fiction out today, and I have to say that this is the best novel in that genre that I have come across in a long, long time… This is a must read if you love art history, vampires, or just a solid page-turner.”
“The Botticelli Affair is a superb romantic urban fantasy thriller that vividly takes readers on a tour of the Metropolitan, and museums and galleries in Europe…”
“Anybody who is looking for a fun read that includes vampires and interesting art history should read The Botticelli Affair. Another plus: it’s a satisfying romantic thriller…”

 

 

Passings
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Passings

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The resonance around a friend’s passing.

Today was my little one’s birthday, and she was home sick with a bad cold.

“I really hate being sick, mom! I don’t want to be sick!” she cried, in her sweet, fierce way.

I tried to console her. I offered to play cards with her or even to snuggle, but she was restless and achey. She wanted to lie quietly and read Harry Potter. I was happy she knew what would make her feel best, and I love seeing her growing independence.

It’s a bittersweet pleasure. Her independence, as does her birthday, means that she’s growing up. She’s no longer my frisky little cub, merging blissfully into my arms. There’s a young woman taking coltish shape. The young woman is creative, smart, engaging, and empathic while also being opinionated; I like her and I enjoy her. I am most eager to see this individual emerge.

But I will miss the little golden cub with her playful leaps and pounces.

This is already a week of missing people. Just a few days ago, a woman died whom I liked and respected. She was a beloved neuropsychologist who had worked extensively with our family, and I had great appreciation for her unique quality of being exceptionally soft and kind while also being imbued with immense intelligence. She was one of my favorite people to deal with. My husband Sabin and my daughter adored her. She managed a difficult meeting at my daughter’s school with rare grace, compassion, and authority.

She was too young to go. And I owed her a phone call to thank her for something. I had in mind I’d call her once the new year got underway.

The day after learning of her death, I attended a memorial service for a friend who had died at Christmas time. Sabin and I sat with our hands entwined, listening to my friend’s husband and children speak lovingly of her, of who she was in all her rich and imperfect and precious human fullness.

I thought how lucky my friend was to have a husband and children who accepted and respected her for exactly who she was; there’s a kind of wholeness in that, and the wholeness remains in the face of loss. I did not manage to find that kind of loving acceptance for myself in the first half of my life. I’m grateful to have been given a second chance.

 

Reading Other People’s Blogs
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Reading Other People’s Blogs

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I have a lovely friend Lori who keeps a blog. I subscribe to her blog via bloglovin, so her enchanting essays regularly land in my inbox. Her posts are richly textured and full of color, they’re sad and despairing and happy and reflective and sweet and charming and inspiring and courageous and heartfelt. I stop work to read them when they come in. I get a little buzz of expansive feeling-thought, rather like eating a sugary square of lush dark chocolate with hazelnuts when I know I shouldn’t.

Lori’s blogs keep me connected to her and her life and they bubble up emotions within me. People use Facebook for that, too, I guess, though I’m not a fan of that particular forum. I forget to go on Facebook for weeks at a time, and then when I do, I try to “like” everything and everyone on my timeline. That ought to tame the beast, right?

I read the blogs of strangers, too, when I come upon them after googling something. I’m looking for information and sometimes I get that. Other times it’s a voyeuristic peek into an unknown life, as if I were riding in a hot air balloon and was floating past, staring down at the scenery. Sometimes it’s both. During the writing of my novel COLD LIGHT, I needed details about a certain Canadian park, and I stumbled upon a family’s blog about their vacation to that park, complete with an extensive photo album. I will never meet that family, but I am grateful to them for recording their trip with such meticulous care. I like to get the details right when I’m building a world inside a story, and I need to get as exhaustively detailed a mental picture as possible to that end. Their chronicles helped me.

I suspect that a lot of authors keep blogs for the same reasons I do: one, to promote their books; two, to keep fresh content trickling into the vast, libidinous ocean of the Internet, where content is king; and three, to rant about life and thus exorcise demons. The urge to autobiography is hard to extinguish.

So, promotional things, like eBook sales: COLD LIGHT will be on sale for $1.99 from Feb 18 to Feb 27; THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR will be on sale for $.99 from Feb 10-18.

And check out this gorgeous oil painting: LIBERACI DAL MALE, by the outrageously talented Italian painter Roberto Ferri. Ferri’s work is insanely beautiful; he knows his way around a figure like no other painter alive right now. Sabin and I are both fans, and Sabin, who is perfectly fluent in Italian, has Skyped with Roberto. Roberto has graciously given permission for me to use LIBERACI DAL MALE as the cover for my novel BROKEN, the WW2 story on which I am currently working. The novel is wrestling me to the ground every day–if I see one more image of a Nazi atrocity, I will not be able to contain the tears–but this image helps. Other people’s work, in image and word, strengthens my own.