Hi, everyone.
This is my first blog and, of course, I am introducing my first novel,
Castilian Heat, now successfully launched on Amazon. Castilian Heat,
like any first-born, is a special baby for me - it marries my love for
Spain, which I visited in 2005 (Barcelona, specifically) with my
memories of Hurricane Sandy, which so devastated the east coast of the
United States in the latter part of 2012. I had been to New York only
once before, in my callow youth, and I remembered the city as being
stunningly vibrant - a thing in perpetual motion that took no prisoners
in terms of activity and sound. Sandy soaked a lot of that dynamism in
those few dreadful days and I left The Big Apple sad and remorseful. It
had become a city without its customary magic. Imaging New York
brutalized by a super-hurricane is like imagining the New Testament
without Jesus. It's just wrong.
I adored the Spanish culture and the people were undeniably gorgeous. I
went to that country reasonably prepared - I had crash-coursed myself
on the language, so at least I did not completely flounder with the
natives. To be sure, though, I was far from ever being comfortably
conversational in the Spanish idiom. Oftentimes, I cursed my fate for
not being more like the little genius of my book, Sheila, who had such
dexterity and facility with languages.
I hope all of you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Sheila Donahue is everything I would like to be - brilliant, beautiful,
adventurous and frightened. She represents the epitome of the phrase
"passionately flawed." But she is also very human. I'm sure you will
come to love her as I did in her creation.
Working on a second book now which I hope to launch in September.
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