Christmas Wishes

I’ve been running a Christmas Wishes contest at my blog, and it’s been fascinating. The comments people have made have made me laugh, made me smile and, I’ll admit it, made me shed a tear or two. What started off as a funny little contest has ended up making me think very hard about what my own Christmas wishes.

So….what would I wish for? You know me, so you’ll know that the cure for diabetes is wish Numero Uno. No surprises there. But what else do I wish for?

I wish for my creativity to come back, without the fretting that sometimes goes with it.
I wish I could know what the answer is on the days when I just don’t know what the answer is. Or at least, know where to find it.
I wish world leaders would listen to what their people really want and to act on that, instead of what’s politically advantageous to themselves.
I wish that human beings would believe in themselves and their wonderful abilities more, instead of just believing what they’re told to believe.
I wish that no child, anywhere, ever has to go without, ever again.

I have funny wishes, too. Johnny Depp and chocolate seem to feature quite highly in those, in varying combinations. But I’d also wish for always being able to find the end of the Sellotape, always being able to put my hand on a pen before I forget ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ may be, and for having an endless supply of beautiful underwear.

I’d love to hear your wishes, and if you come over to Home Thoughts From a Broad and tell me them, you might even win a prize!

Image: Suat Eman/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

La Serenissima

When it comes to the world’s most romantic cities, Venice must be right up there in the top ten. Why so? What is it about this city that attracts us so, and has done for centuries? She is beautiful, of course – the elegance and majesty of her, a grandeur that speaks of a great history, a city that has somehow held her own despite many challenges throughout her centuries.

Yet one of the things I’m certain that fascinates us so about Venice is her inherent sadness. Even within recent memory, she’s suffered damage from the one thing we identify her with above all others – water. With Venice, there’s always the possibility that she may not survive the rising water levels or the next storm. There are many reasons for this, some perhaps to do with the way she was built in the first place, and, and some caused by our planet’s ongoing climate change. She’s suffering more and more damage to the shallow foundations of many of her buildings, and for a city built on canals, one which owes her very existence to her relationship with water, what an irony that it might be her very life-blood that’s hurting her. Yet she’s still here, seemingly eternal despite her fragility. Perhaps Venice has an inner strength, a force deep inside her that means she’ll never be beaten.

When I wrote my short story Perfect Strangers, which is set in a wintry Venice, this awareness of this ‘weight of water’ was constant. The influence of water and weather became a kind of motif in the story from the very beginning.

'Nowhere drizzles like Venice in January.

A fine mist that plays make-believe, pretending it’s not really there until it creeps up on freshly blow-dried hair and into the toes of newly polished boots. Sneaky drizzle.'

Anna meets a quiet, handsome American, and despite that fact that they’re complete strangers to each other, she recognizes a little of herself in him. They’re ‘two perfect strangers in a perfect city,’ and it somehow feels right they should spend the day together. Then Venice begins to work her magic…and what began as an innocent diversion quickly becomes something much, much deeper. Here’s the scene where Venice unleashes her powers of wind and water, and everything between Anna and her companion begins to change.

'As the waterbus headed back across the canal, the winter sun gave up the struggle completely. Black clouds gathered, firing warning shots of ice-cold raindrops across their faces. A sharp, merciless wind whipped the water into foaming white horses that reared and struggled against the blast.
When they docked, the few other passengers scattered and disappeared like a child’s dropped handful of marbles. The skies ripped open and flooded the streets with freezing water as the force of the wind pushed them backward, slapping the hems of their wet coats around their legs.
Anna’s hair whipped around her face as the American grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him, racing for shelter. Stumbling blindly in the rain, she trusted him completely. He made for a shop doorway and hauled her in, both of them laughing and breathless from the run.
“Good God, isn’t there enough water in Venice already?” He squinted up at the sky. “Looks like it’s setting in for a while, too.”
“Clearly somebody somewhere thinks not.” Anna loosened her coat to shake off the rain, then pulled her belt back tight around her waist. Shoving her hands deep in her pockets, she peeked out of the doorway at the storm, shivering. She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh! We’re stuck here.”
“Looks that way.”
“Hmm. It might stop in a moment.”
They both peered up at the sky, then exchanged incredulous glances.
“Unlikely!” they said together.
They watched the rain, listening to it pound the pavement at their feet. A man wrapped up tight against the storm rushed past, one hand clutching a dripping hat to his head; after him, not another soul.
Anna leaned back against the shop window. A small, perfectly conical Christmas tree displayed Murano glass earrings in the shape of tears, and she looked away. She’d had enough of tears.
Softly, his voice moved into her thoughts. “You have diamonds in your hair again.”
Anna looked up, not understanding. “What?”
He lifted his hand to stroke the side of her cheek, and she held her breath. “When I saw you this morning, with the rain on your hair. It looked like diamonds.”
“You were watching me...how long?”
“Oh, a long time. I couldn’t take my eyes off you — this crazy, beautiful woman dancing in Venice in the rain.” He moved toward her, and Anna felt herself drawn to him in return, unbidden, instinctive.
His kiss was a hesitant, unspoken question, and she gave him her perfect answer. Nothing in this world had ever felt so right; it was the kiss she’d been waiting for all her life, and she wrapped herself in it as if she was coming home.
Afterward they held each other close, feeling the peace and stillness that had eluded them both for so long. His sweet, warm breath caressed her face as he spoke.
“I don’t want to be a tourist anymore.”
“No,” Anna whispered. “Marco’s apartment...”
“Yes.” '

When I put together a video trailer for Perfect Strangers, I wanted it to be quite simple, so the obvious choice was to use black and white images. It had to hint at Anna’s sadness, the dearth of colour in her life until the day she comes to Venice and meets her ‘Perfect Stranger.’ Above all, I wanted the magic, beauty and clarity of the city to shine through.



I don’t think the world will lose Venice, despite her troubles. Too many people care about her to let her deterioration continue. She is magical, eternal, and to be cherished – and I hope this will always be the case.



She is loved. And Venice, like love, is per sempre…forever.

Perfect Strangers is available HERE from The Wild Rose Press.

Visit the charity Venice in Peril for more information on the restoration and protection of La Serenissima.

Table For Two...?

Tucked away in a rural corner in the tiny Italian province of Rieti is a small restaurant. It’s very special. To reserve your table, you must book at least seven days in advance. You can personalise your menu, choose your background music, and they’ll even bake you a heart-shaped cake. If you arrive at the restaurant after dark, the driveway will be lit with candles.


You’d think a restaurant like this would be bursting at the seams every night, wouldn’t you? That you’d be eating elbow-to-elbow with the occupants of the table next to yours, constantly having to pull in your chair as other customers squeeze past – because, of course, in a special place like this, every inch of floor space is taken up with dining furniture and service trolleys. Every evening will find a party in one corner or another, the loud buzz of jolly conversation, maybe even a burst of song or two.


Not here. For this is Solo Per Due, and the name tells you exactly who you’ll find there. No-one but you and that someone special. For this restaurant is Only For Two.


Imagine! A restaurant where the only customers are you and your loved one. One table, two chairs, and that’s it. No-one else, save for a discreet waiter whom you summon with a silver bell when you’re ready to eat, or when the level of your champagne glasses drops dangerously low. Perhaps you’ll join the lovers from all over the world who have recorded their stories in the restaurant’s libro dei pensieri, the 'book of thoughts.'


How romantic. I’ve never been, but I’d love to. Maybe one day, my travels will take me there, together, of course, with the man I love. We’ve had romantic meals together, but nothing quite like what you'd find at Solo Per Due.


But you know, I don’t think you actually have to travel far to have the most romantic of meals. Sharing a sandwich and coffee in the local park as the autumn leaves fall is romance, for me. Or cooking in the kitchen together, him opening the wine and me at the stove cooking something really simple like an omelette. The salad, of course, we’ll fix together. We won’t bother leaving the kitchen to eat, just pull a couple of tall stools up to the counter and eat and chat, maybe with the radio playing quietly in the background.

Bliss.
No, you don’t have to travel far for a romantic dinner. But if we had to, I think I know where I’d like to go. And no - we won't see you there!

A Girl's Best Friend.

‘“Here you go. A slice and some ice, just enough to make that satisfying clink as one gets slowly sozzled.”
“Danny, you’re my hero. Say you’ll marry me.”
“I thought you’d never ask. A church do, naturally.”
“Only if you promise to wear white.”
“And you promise to wear as little as possible.”
“Cheers, you loony.”’

Recognise that sort of exchange? If you’ve got a best friend, then you will! That’s Maggie Lawless, my heroine from A Different Kind of Honesty, and her best friend Danny Chang. I don’t think I could ever write a heroine without writing her best friend too. My heroines aren’t dependent on my heroes – God forbid! – but they’re definitely dependent on their best friend. A girl’s best friend provides the shoulder to cry on, and the metaphorical ankle to kick. He – or she – will set her straight, cheer her on, and point out the error of her ways in the nicest possible way. Well, you knew that! But in terms of writing the story, the Best-Friend-Character is a great tool. The heroine can say things to the best friend that she might never say to the hero, and maybe not even to herself. Having the BFC shows us how the heroine conducts her relationships with other people, and tells us a lot about her loyalty. As a writer, I love writing the heroine’s best friend, because I get to indulge my naughty side. I can tease the heroine, I can stop her taking herself so seriously and let her laugh at the occasional absurdities of her romance with the hero. Here’s another exchange between Maggie and Danny.

'Maggie didn’t even pretend not to watch as Tony walked toward the sliding doors.
Danny folded his arms and tsk-tsk’d.
“Honestly. Put your tongue in, girl, it’s not ladylike. Listen, do you have any idea how much I’ve been dying to get you on your own since the softball game?”
Maggie picked up the hand towel from the counter, making a big deal of shaking it out and hanging it up on its hook. “Have you really?” she said, as lightly as she could manage.
“Just a little! I nearly followed you to the bathroom at one point, but I decided that was a bit too juvenile even for me.”
He hoisted himself up on the counter and swung his feet like a ten-year old. “What happened out there? That was one helluva tackle.”
Maggie tried to keep her expression as serene as possible. “We just crashed and tripped, that’s all.”
“Oh, yes, silly me.” He raised his eyes skyward. “And you just happened to end up underneath him. Gosh, the memories must have come flooding back.”'

In my short story Perfect Strangers, the heroine’s best friend is vital. Marco, Anna’s best friend, has let her use his apartment for a few days – the same apartment where she and the hero spend their one perfect night. We never actually see Marco, and only hear from him once during one short telephone conversation, but I was able to use this BFC to move the story along and tell the reader a bit more about Anna.

'She remembered their phone conversation as if it was yesterday.

“Ciao, bella, come va?”
“Marco! I’m fine, you?”
“Good! But I have a little mystery which I think maybe you can solve for me.”
“A mystery?”
“I have an envelope, addressed to—let me see—’Marco, Director, L’Accademia, Venice.’ That’s all. Inside, a note and another envelope. Cara mia, what have you been up to? I think it’s meant for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“Listen. ‘Dear Marco. Forgive me, but please pass this to the woman who stayed in your apartment last week. I never knew her name.’ It’s not signed.” He paused. “Anna, are you still there, bella? Shall I open it, yes?”
“Yes.”
She held her breath as she listened to the sound of paper tearing, then Marco’s voice back on the line.
“Ah, someone has taste...La Madonna della Sedia. Again, not signed, but there’s something written on the back. Let me make it out...’per sempre’. Dio, Anna! You keep secrets! You know who this is from?”
“I know who it’s from. Thanks, Marco. Please send it to me.”'

Finally, here’s an excerpt from an unpublished work-in-progress, Silver Wings. Amy is a WWII land-girl who helped rescue a Spitfire pilot whose plane crashed in the field she was digging. When he returns to the farm to thank her, her best friend Pixie knows she’ll find out what he said later – but nosy Dot has been listening at the door.

'Dot was hopping from one foot to the other, as if she was desperate to go to the loo, but wouldn’t go till I told her what happened. As if she didn’t know already, with her listening at keyholes. Well, she could pee in her knickers for all I cared; I wasn’t gong to say a word. Pixie was grinning again. She doesn’t need to spy to know what’s going on in my head, and she’d know I’d tell her later anyway. I love Pixie to death, and she knows how to keep a secret. But as for Dot...I couldn’t resist.
“I must talk to Tom about getting the farm cat down here,” I said as I walked past them, all airy. “I’m sure I heard mice in the hall. Or maybe even a rat!”
Pixie laughed her huge laugh, and Dot squealed and rushed off down the garden. I hope she wet herself before she got there.'

I love my heroines, and I love their best friends just as much. Here’s cheers to A Girl’s Best Friend!

Hidden Feelings, Inner Thoughts.

A while ago, a bunch of us on another blog had a brief discussion about whether contemporary men have a deeper side to them. Well, of course they do! But then again, I would say that. It’s what I enjoy writing the most. I’m interested in the internal stuff; the internal dialogue and the sense of self. Perhaps it’s because of the work I’ve done in the past - the theatre is a place where emotions are always on show and you're surrounded by actors and singers whose job it is to show their deeper feelings to an audience by means of music, dialogue or soliloquy. Very often, as in real life, the persona a character presents to the outside world bears little or no relation to what’s really happening deep inside. In the case of ‘the hero,’ how he deals with this persona and these feelings is what interests me.

When it comes to ‘sense of self,’ Tony Valentino, my hero from A Different Kind of Honesty, has had to deal with more than most. As an undercover FBI agent, he’s spent much of his time ‘being’ another person – in his case, a full-on, player-type named Joey Pescolloni. While Tony and Joey were two different kinds of men, what interested me was how the real person inside – Tony – coped with this dual personality and double life. Well, the truth is, he coped fine. Most of the time.

“It was like being both, me and Joey, all at the same time. Him on the outside, me on the inside... “

Tony has accepted that he has to carry everything inside, rarely expressing his real, true self. That comes with the job, a job that can involve personal loss and major life changes. But Tony’s a professional. He’s trained to work that way, he can handle it. At least, he thought he could handle it, until the day he met Maggie Lawless and knew right away that she was ‘the one.’ In a world of secrets and half-truths, Tony has no choice but to keep the truth about himself hidden from her, and that means the relationship’s over before it’s barely begun. When he meets her again six months later, he knows he must explain.

“Maggie, I need to talk to you. About what happened before.”
She swung around to face him, forcing her brightest smile.
“You know, you don’t have to say a thing about that. I can guess how it was.”
“Can you?” He raised an eyebrow in surprise. She said nothing and he took a step towards her. “Maggie—”
“It’s okay.” She cut him off, unable to bear hearing him say her name if all he meant to do was to tell her what a mistake he’d made. “These things happen and then they’re best forgotten. I understand that.”
Tony drew a breath. “No, wait a second...there are things I should explain to you. Things you might not have understood......Yes, I asked you to dinner because it suited Joey, but as soon as we started talking, I mean, really talking—” He dropped his hands to his sides, facing her, breathing hard. “I was lying to you and I didn’t want to. But I had no choice.”

To say he’s met with a mixed response is an understatement! But now Tony has to let Maggie to come to terms with what happened between them all those months ago, and deep inside, he knows what choice he wants her to make. He wants her back. But Maggie may not feel the same way.

In the excerpt that follows, Tony goes to visit an old friend, and we find out a little more about what’s going on inside.

‘Tony slowed the silver Taurus to a halt and killed the engine. The clock on the dash showed ten after one. He glanced in the rear and side view mirrors, but didn’t see any other cars on the road. Besides, he’d done a couple of tortuous circuits of the area before finally pulling into the Linares’ driveway.
He got out and walked up the path in the full afternoon sun, noting Ramon’s old station wagon in front of the garage. Behind that, parked in front of the Taurus, stood a brand new red Ford Fusion he hadn’t seen before. He checked through the driver’s side windows. A map lay open on the passenger seat, and on the backseat, a light blue sweatshirt with a faded surfer logo and a woman’s red jean jacket. Next to those, a couple of small mineral water bottles with sports caps, one empty, and a copy of the week’s Time Out. As he walked around the car, he saw a sticker in the rear window that read ‘Star Car Rental, NYC, NY.’
Tony thought a moment. Ramon hadn’t mentioned any houseguests. It occurred to him the car might be a set up, but he dismissed the idea almost immediately. The types who might have wanted a couple of short-and-to-the-point words with him weren’t that subtle.
Shrieks and yells burst from the garden behind the house and he jerked his head up. A woman’s laughter and shouts of encouragement floated over sounds of children squealing and he recognized Nina Linares’ voice. Letting out a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in, he closed his eyes and ran a hand over his forehead, wondering when the hell he’d forgotten how children’s games sounded. A knock on glass startled him and he looked up to see Ramon wave from the window and jab his finger towards the front door before he disappeared from view.
Tony walked over to the porch steps and turned to look back along the road he’d just driven. Very few houses sat out here and those that did were mostly obscured by bushy shrubs and mature trees. He didn’t see anyone, and it was doubtful anyone could have seen him. There were no cars parked on the street.
Despite the sunshine, a misty blue haze hung around the top of the hills beyond the valley, the way it always looked every time he’d visited. He’d last been here a couple of months back; before that, several years ago, before he’d gone undercover. The landscape had a Mediterranean look about it, the reason Ramon and Nina had chosen it as the place to make their home and bring up their three children.
Ramon sauntered down the front steps, relaxed in his weekend clothes instead of one of his tailored office suits.
“I heard the car. Glad you made it, my friend.” He clapped Tony on the shoulder. They shook hands then Tony returned his gaze to the view.
“Always looks so still. And the air tastes so good. Makes you think about what you’re breathing in the city.”
Ramon nodded his agreement. “Nina chose well. It reminds her of the mountains she knew as a child in Spain.”
“She still want to go back?”
“Ah, maybe one day.” Ramon shrugged, stroking his neat beard. “When we’re old and grey.” He looked at Tony. “What about you? You going to make that return trip to Italy you keep telling me about?”
“Sure, soon as I can. You know my folks went back there?”
“No, I didn’t know. To be near your brother and his family?”
“Paolo the hot-shot Rome lawyer, yeah. Seemed like the right thing for them to do, this time of their life. My dad decided he wanted to die where he was born. He’s not dead yet, though,” he added with a smile. “I’ll visit soon. When this case is over.”
“Relive a bit of your youth, huh?”
“Yeah. Last time, I was seventeen. Worked on my uncle’s farm a whole summer. Drove my aunt crazy, running around with the village teenagers at night.” He gave a short laugh at the memory. “She was all for sending me home, but my uncle bailed me out.”
Ramon nodded. “She’d be proud of you now, though.”
Tony turned to him in surprise, but Ramon kept his look directed at the distant hills. Tony looked at them too.
“Something else about that summer...I fell head over heels in love with the village beauty. Infatuated. She’d have nothing to do with me, though.” He smiled. “I don’t think she ever knew.”
“And it broke your foolish teenage heart?”
“Into a million pieces. And you know what? I can't even remember her name."
Ramon laughed. “C’mon. Nina is cooking paella to die for and there’s a cold beer out there with your name on it.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Ramon headed up the steps to the front door. Before he followed, Tony took one last look at the blue hills. He thought about the village beauty all those years back. Now there was another girl in the picture and it looked like she didn’t want to know either. Only this time, he hadn’t forgotten her name. This one was inked on his heart like a tattoo. And removing it would hurt like hell.’

A Different Kind of Honesty is published in print and e-book, and is available from The Wild Rose Press.