Linda Lappin

“Signatures in Stone undermines the reader's confidence and challenges her perspective. Lappin's sharp, precise prose with touches of lyricism and irony is a perfect match for her heroine who irritates and delights us with her shortcomings and her skewed brilliance."  --B.Zaczek, SCR

THE ENIGMATIC MUSE OF BOMARZO. A ZOOM EVENT

Despite park closures and travel restrictions, I revisited the Sacred Grove of Bomarzo recently in virtual mode with historical author Mary Jane Cryan and novelists Teresa Cutler-Broyles and Gigi Pandian, who have all written about the fantastic sculpture garden and its eerie giants. That labyrinth of stones and moss  provided the inspiration for SIGNATURES IN STONE. We organized a zoom event to discuss how this place inspired our writing. You can view the edited presentation here. The Enigmatic Muse of Bomarzo.

Linda recently collaborated with Edward E French, the award-winning make-up artist who moonlights as a narrator of audio books. Ed has narrated a section of Signatures in Stone for his youtube channel. The episode takes place in the garden of Bomarzo when Daphne and Professor Finestone discover the Hell Mouth while exploring the meaning of the grotesque statues. Click below to hear Ed's superb narration against the backdrop of the Bomarzo sculpture garden.

THE SOUL OF PLACE–

A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises
for Conjuring the Genius Loci
By Linda Lappin
Published by Travelers' Tales, 2015
isbn: 978-1609521035,

"Insightful exercises help creative writers of all levels attune themselves to the power of place in order to churn out evocative prose that jumps off the page." National Geographic Intelligent Traveler

MORE PRAISE FROM READERS & WRITERS FOR LINDA LAPPIN'S
THE SOUL OF PLACE

"Inspirational...Lovely...Explorative,"Book Riot
"A great new resource for writers" Dr. Jessie Voigts, Wandering Educators
"A conscious way to explore the power of place" WanderLit
"This book will change your writing" Wandering Educators

“Invaluable advice for the writer and traveler, deeply thoughtful.” –Lavinia Spalding, author of Writing Away

SIGNATURES IN STONE: A Bomarzo Mystery

by Linda Lappin

Prize-Winning Author Probes the Secrets of Italy’s Famous Monster Park

OVERALL WINNER DAPHNE DU MAURIER AWARD IN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE WRITING, 2014

“An intelligent summer mystery” – Library Journal
“Moody romantic suspense Daphne Du Maurier might have written.” –Library Journal


PRAISE FROM CRITICS AND READERS

“Deftly mixing fascinating art history and murder with an exotic atmospheric setting (the Bomarzo garden actually exists), dramatic historical period (1928 fascist Italy), and fully fleshed characters, Lappin (The Etruscan) has written a hallucinatory gothic mystery in which no one is as they appear. Daphne is a most memorable, if a bit unreliable (thanks to her opium habit), narrator. Readers looking for an intelligent summer mystery will find much to savor here.”— Wilda Williams, Library Journal 

FIVE STARS ON AMAZON " I loved this novel! It's a rare balance between eerie and sense-making. Its main character is the spooky Italian landscape of Bomarzo and its Monster Garden of violent statues--which really do exist, the author tells us. But the 5 characters, including the engaging narrator, hashish-addicted Daphne, are as mysterious as the setting. Lappin's people are as dangerously compelling as her Italy. I look forward to a long, creepy series of Daphne mysteries.” Nina Auerbach, author of Women and Demons reviewing for Amazon.

“Lappin is a modern day Agatha Christie with prose that is like eating dark chocolate or sipping a glass of fine wine — the story continues to entice your senses and simply gets better and better the more you partake. Not one to hurry to the plot, she unveils the scenes piece by piece, character by character and leaves her own signatures for you to find along the way.” Vikki Walton I Love a Mystery

“Lappin lures the reader into the loins of Italy, describing it with a lust for its countryside and peculiarities as one might let on about a lover,” Shaina Mugan, Gently Read Literature

KATHERINE’S WISH
By Linda Lappin
A novel about the life of Katherine Mansfield
Wordcraft of Oregon, 2008
Paperback, 225 pages, isbn 978-1-877-655 586
Distributed by INGRAMS, Available from AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE

In this dramatic, fictional retelling of New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield’s final years, novelist Linda Lappin captures the rainbow-like essence of Mansfield’s being, transporting the reader like a time traveler into her intimate world. Scrupulously researched and richly evocative, the novel has been praised by Mansfield scholars as “creative scholarship.” With vivid detail and beautiful language and style, Lappin has built on journals, letters, and diaries to fashion a true-to-life mosaic, using themes, motifs, and methods of Mansfield’s own writing. Katherine’s Wish celebrates Mansfield’s deep love of life and its final message is a life –affirming one of joy and of wholeness achieved. A must for libraries, research centers, and book clubs interested in women writers, Bloomsbury, Katherine Mansfield, and modernism, as well as those interested in Mansfield’s contacts with George Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

“A dazzling bit of literary sorcery,” advance praise from David Lynn, editor, the Kenyon Review.

“The more Katherine Mansfield approaches death, the more she comes to life in Linda Lappin’s Katherine’s Wish…Lappin’s achievement is to succeed where medicine failed and, through her words, give Katherine Mansfield ongoing life.”
Walter Cummins, the Literary Review

“Capturing the latter part of Katherine’s life and world, the author brings vivid life to this novel, which reads like a literary biography of Katherine Mansfield
and her contemporaries.” - Tess Allegra, The Historical Novels Review

“[Lappin’s] writing style, with its rhythm, flow, and sensual detail, richly evokes the significant social scene of a vanished era….Katherine’s Wish is first and foremost the compelling story of an artist fighting against time. Long after the last page, thoughts of her linger like an exotic scent.” Rain Taxi

“An intriguing and highly recommended piece of writing.” Midwest Book Review