Saturday, February 15, 2014

The Saturday Spotlight with Hannah Fielding and Giveaway of The Echoes of Love

Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature that shines the light on Indie and Debut authors. This week I have the pleasure introducing readers to:

HANNAH FIELDING
~Author of Echoes of Love~


Setting the scene for my novel, The Echoes of Love
by Hannah Fielding-2014

I have always been a traveler at heart, one who finds great inspiration from travelling and experiencing different cultures and places. My first novel, Burning Embers, was born of a trip I took to Kenya as a young woman. My new novel, The Echoes of Love, has similar roots, having found its way into my imagination due to trips to Venice during which I was most struck by the two faces of the city – that which the tourists flock to see, and that which is beneath the illusion, the mirage.

Italy, of course, was an easy choice as the setting for a romance novel. Since my first visit in early childhood, I have loved the country for its warm, passionate people, its fascinating history, its delicious cuisine, its inspirational culture and, of course, its awe-inspiring vistas, from the cityscapes to the rural greens and ochres and yellows of the countryside. I set the opening of The Echoes of Love in Venice, city of love and of mystery, but as the lovers begin to unravel the truth of themselves, I whisk them away from the hustle and bustle and the tourists, to Tuscany and to Sardinia.

Venice

(CC) Venice
The Grand Canal had the dramatic, blinding brilliance of a purple mirror. Far over it, the golden orb seemed to set in a flood of vaporous colour which appeared to surge up from the land and become reflected in the glimmering pools created by the broken shadows of the building. Waves of burning light spread all over the western sky and the boats, the palazzi, and the water were dyed a deep rose by the glow.

So reads one of my many descriptions of this enthralling city. Artist Arbit Blatas wrote, ‘In the winter, Venice is like an abandoned theater. The play is finished, but the echoes remain.’ This is the sense I had of the city as I wrote: misty, ethereal, mysterious; at once beautiful and full of wonder and grandeur, but also with a shadowy side – as evidenced in an attack on my heroine, Venetia, early on.

Tuscany

The Tyrrhenian coast glowed under the wide arc of a burning, cloudless blue sky, the sea a shimmering golden mirror; the sweeping coastline looked out over the distant islands of the Tuscan Archipelago, echoing their beauty with its wild and mountainous landscape, the pale rock densely interspersed with exotically green pine groves, and its almost luminescent aquamarine waters lapping the shores Tuscany.

I very much enjoyed researching Santo Stefano, Tuscany, where my hero Paolo’s main home is based – such a beautiful, unspoiled part of the world where romance is intrinsic in every detail of the landscape. I felt a great sense of freedom as I wrote the sequences set in Tuscany – like my characters could throw their arms wide and really breathe freely outside of the big city. It was also the perfect setting in which to set Venetia – professional mosaic restorer – to work in old and beautiful ruins.

Sardinia

The island, with its distant serrated mountain peaks, seemed to shine with borrowed gold in the sharp glare, like stairs leading into a huge blue-domed basilica of sky overhead Sardinia.

When I really wanted the lovers to have an escape, I took them to this beautiful island, a kind of in-between world, part of Italy and yet unique in character and autonomous. The island provided such a rich sensory experience; as Paolo points out in the book, more than two thousand, five hundred species of wild flowering shrubs grow there, and their scent is so powerful that in ancient times oarsmen of boats knew the island from a distance because of the perfume that drifted far out over the sea. The visit to Sardinia also provided an opportunity to explore legend and folklore particular to the island – such as that of Sardinia as the lost Atlantis and the stories of the Janas, the fairies and witches who supposedly dwell there. 

Delightful writing for a daydreamer such as myself!


Hannah Fielding is a novelist, a dreamer, a traveler, a mother, a wife and an incurable romantic. The seeds for her writing career were sown in early childhood, spent in Egypt, when she came to an agreement with her governess Zula: for each fairy story Zula told, Hannah would invent and relate one of her own. Years later – following a degree in French literature, several years of travelling in Europe, falling in love with an Englishman, the arrival of two beautiful children and a career in property development – Hannah decided after so many years of yearning to write that the time was now. Today, she lives the dream: she writes full time, splitting her time between her homes in Kent, England, and the South of France, where she dreams up romances overlooking breathtaking views of the Mediterranean.

Her first novel, Burning Embers, is a vivid, evocative love story set against the backdrop of tempestuous and wild Kenya of the 1970s, reviewed by one newspaper as ‘romance like Hollywood used to make’. Her new novel, The Echoes of Love, is a story of passion, betrayal and intrigue set in the romantic and mysterious city of Venice and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany.

GIVEAWAY

Today Hannah Fielding is giving away two copies of her book The Echoes of Love. Each book is a physical copy and open to international winners. Please fill in the copter for your chance to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Set against the breathtaking beauty of Italy, The Echoes of Love is a passionate, heart-breaking romance to ignite the senses and rekindle your belief in the power of love. Seduction, passion and secrets... Venetia Aston-Montagu has escaped to Venice to work in her godmother's architectural practice, putting a lost love behind her. For the past ten years she has built a fortress around her heart, only to find the walls tumbling down one night of the carnival when she is rescued from masked assailants by an enigmatic stranger, Paolo Barone. Drawn to the powerfully seductive Paolo, despite warnings of his Don Juan reputation and rumors that he keeps a mistress, Venetia can't help being caught up in the smoldering passion that ignites between them. 

When she finds herself assigned to a project at his magnificent home deep in the Tuscan countryside, Venetia not only faces a beautiful young rival but also a sinister count and dark forces in the shadows, determined to come between them. Can Venetia trust that love will triumph, even over her own demons? Or will Paolo's carefully guarded, devastating secret tear them apart forever?

Thanks Hannah for being on the spotlight today. To find out more about this author go to:

GOODREADS~FACEBOOK
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4 comments:

  1. Laura Fabiani iRead Book ToursFebruary 15, 2014 at 7:47 PM

    Besides having a gorgeous book cover, I love stories set in Italy. I just returned from Venice this last summer. We loved our trip. Thanks for this giveaway!

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  2. It sounds like a wonderful story. I love the setting and the cover. Thanks for having the giveaway.

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  3. Interesting places

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  4. I´d really love to read this book! The cover is pretty and the book sounds interesting. I love travelling and those places excite me.
    Jenna

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