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Dear Reader,
"I declare there is no enjoyment like reading --Jane Austen" is the caption on the tote bags I'm giving away to readers today, in celebration of National Library Week. Click on the link below to enter the giveaway.
It's a National Library Week party every day this week--lots of fun giveaways for librarians. If you work at a library (or retired from a library), enter to win one of the several tote bags I have for readers. It's simple to enter, click here.
Please welcome, today's guest author, Tracee de Hahn to the book club. Tracy was born in southeast Missouri, raised in Kentucky and now lives in Virginia. In between, she spent time on several continents, including living in Paris, Venice and Switzerland.
Tracy's current book, A Well-Timed Murder, is the second in the Agnes Luthi mysteries series. Please email and say hello to Tracy and when you do, you'll be entered in a drawing for a copy of A Well-Timed Murder. Email [email protected]
Welcome to the book club, Tracy de Hahn...
I'm preparing for an ocean voyage. Although a lifelong traveler, this will be a new one for me: crossing the Atlantic (both ways) on a ship.
I've always loved to travel. As a teenager, I spent summers on buses traveling to drum and bugle corps competitions. Later, it was toting a backpack through Europe (under the guise of studying architecture). Eventually I realized that every trip was inspiration for a book. Not literally. Seeing me at the Louvre Museum in Paris doesn't mean bodies will start to fall in front of the Mona Lisa. However, each experience adds to the memory bank that simmers in the subconscious to form plots, characters and yes, the places in my stories.
This fall, I'll do the Atlantic crossings--with my Jack Russell Terriers--on the Queen Mary 2. As any weekend fisher knows, being on the water brings an equilibrium to life. Large bodies of water have a power we feel.
When I lived in Venice, Italy we took a vaporreto (waterbus) every day. They were convenient and allowed us to see the facades of the ancient buildings as they were intended to be viewed. When fog arrived, travel by boat was a reminder that we don't have control over the elements. Even on a city canal the boats needed sonar.
I was married in Hong Kong and the Star Ferry between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island remains a magical tie. Since 1888, the ferry has carried passengers between the mainland and the island, between cultures, and between economic systems. Today you can cross by rail and road tunnels but the ferry remains the way to experience the crossing both physically and visually.
My mystery series is set in Switzerland where the lakes are as famous as the mountains. Lausanne, Lucerne and Zurich come alive in a different way when approached from water. Ancient castles, such as Chateau de Chillon are meant to be seen from the lake.
This is all in my mind as I plan my Atlantic crossings. I dream of arriving on the British coast as sailors have for hundreds of years. Seeing land after a week at sea. And of the return to New York where we will pass under the Verrazano bridge, eager for the sight of the Statue of Liberty. For a writer, it is the ultimate chance to dream. It's very likely that I'll come up with a few mystery scenarios while on board. Before any fellow travelers get nervous, don't worry, it all stays on the page.
--Tracee de Hahn
Email [email protected] for a chance to win a copy of A Well-Timed Murder.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
** AUTHORBUZZ **
MY DEAR HAMILTON (Fiction) by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie
Here is the untold story of Eliza, the wronged wife at the center of America's first sex scandal who went on to leave a little-known but profound social and political legacy of her own. We used thousands of Hamilton letters at the National Archives, NYPL, and NYHS to tell Eliza's untold story--not just of her tumultuous marriage, but of her political partnership with Alexander and the way she shaped an American legacy of her own in the decades after he died.
Go to: AUTHORBUZZ click on MY DEAR HAMILTON to read more and to email author Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie, you'll get a reply.
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