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MY BOOKS & MORE

EXPLORE THE STORIES

CLICK ON THE HEADINGS OF EACH BOOK LISTED BELOW  TO FIND RESOURCES, VIDEOS, AUDIOS, INTERVIEWS 

FEATURED BOOKS:

THE ETRUSCAN (THE NOTEBOOK OF HARRIET SACKETT)

LOVING MODIGLIANI- THE AFTERMATH OF JEANNE HEBUTERNE

SIGNATURES IN STONE - A BOMARZO MYSTERY

THE SOUL OF PLACE

KATHERINE'S WISH

On this page you'll find older essays, reviews, obsessions, links to my radio plays, and more. I hope you enjoy exploring.
The boar --Etruscan symbol of the turning seasons.
The boar is the beast of death and November is the death of the boar.
 
Photo credit Mary Jane Cryan

THE ETRUSCAN 2024 Edition

Published by Pleasure Boat Studio, 2024

 

HAUNTED, VIVID, ENTRANCING...KIRKUS

LUSCIOUS, EVOCATIVE, ESOTERIC... THE STARRY LIBRARY

 

(2004,2024) In this award-winning literary gothic novel, American photographer, Harriet Sackett, travels to Italy in 1922 to capture images of ancient Etruscan tombs. There, she falls for Count Federigo, a mysterious and charismatic figure who claims to have unusual psychic abilities. As her obsession with him grows, Harriet's mental state unravels. The story is told through the perspective of her English cousins, who read Harriet's diary to uncover the truth about Federigo. Is Harriet's lover a conman, a ghost, or a figment of Harriet's imagination?  Romance and intrigue unfold amid Tuscan villas and eerie Etruscan landscapes. "Gothic in the grand style-darkly mysterious, psychologically acute, emotionally subtle." -Tom Wilhelmus, longtime fiction critic for the Hudson Review. Pleasure Boat Studio is proud to announce the first US print & paperback edition of Linda Lappin's tantalizing debut novel, reminiscent of John Fowles' The Magus.

 

 Kirkus:  Haunted, Vivid, Entrancing

genre: Mystery, Suspense, Romance, Historical, Gothic

keywords:  Dark, Occult, Romantic, Eerie, Etruscan, Women travelers

Setting:  1920s, Italy, Tuscany, Tuscia

 

Library availability:  Hoopla, Overdrive, BUY FROM INGRAM

EBOOK & PAPERBACK, all bookstores and formats

FOR MORE RESOURCES, REVIEWS, VIDEOS, PODCASTS, & AUDIO, SEE  MY BOOK PAGE FOR THE ETRUSCAN

BEST SELLING CROSS-GENRE HISTORICAL FICTION!

LOVING MODIGLIANI: THE AFTERLIFE OF JEANNE HEBUTERNE

Published by Serving House Books

 

 "BRILLIANTLY RESEARCHED, IMAGINATIVE, CROSS-GENRE HISTORICAL FICTION -  KIRKUS

 "A fine tribute to an artist forgotten for 100 years"-- Historical Novels Society

 

(2020) PARIS 1920 Dying just 48 hours after her  husband, Jeanne Hebuterne—wife and muse of the celebrated painter Amedeo Modigliani and an artist in her own right — haunts their shared studio, watching as her legacy is erased. Decades later, a young art history student travels across Europe to rescue Jeanne's work from obscurity. A ghost story, love story, and a search for a missing masterpiece. 

 

Finalist 2021 Daphne Du Maurier Awards

2021 Winner Womens Fiction--Indie Reader

2022 Shortlist Montaigne Medal for Distinguished Books

2024 Winner Historical Category Indie Author Project


"A part fantastical ghost story, part romance focuses on Modigliani's lover…Brilliantly researched, imaginative cross-genre historical fiction…The book's inventive afterlife is as vividly drawn as the streets of Paris." --Kirkus Reviews

 

Genre: cross-genre historical fiction, magical realism, historical fantasy

Keywords: Gothic,  Paris 1920, Artists in love, Women Artists, Montparnasse

Setting: Paris 1920/ the afterlife; Paris, Nice & Rome 1970; Venice 2021

 

Critics say: A Living Map of Montparnasse! 

 

FOR MORE RESOURCES, REVIEWS, VIDEOS, AUDIO, & MORE SEE MY BOOK PAGE FOR LOVING MODIGLIANI

 

LOVING MODIGLIANI: THE AFTERLIFE OF JEANNE HEBUTERNE

BEST SELLING WRITERS' REFERENCE
 
THE SOUL OF PLACE -- IDEAS & EXERCISES FOR CONJURING THE GENIUS LOCI

THE SOUL OF PLACE : IDEAS & EXERCISES FOR CONJURING THE GENIUS LOCI

 ELECTRIFY YOUR WRITING WITH THE MYSTERIOUS POWER OF PLACE

Published by Travelers' Tales, 2015
isbn: 978-1609521035

 

"This is such a pleasure to read. Unlike most books with writing prompts, this one goes in depth with sensitizing you to ground yourself in awareness of where you are and why. Grazie, Linda, for this marvelous work." —Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun

 

"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

 
In this engaging creative writing workbook, Linda Lappin, novelist, poet, and travel writer, presents a series of insightful exercises to help writers of all genres -- (literary travel writing, memoir, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction) discover imagery and inspiration in the places they love.

Genre: place-writing guide, creative writing guide, memoir writing guide, travel writing

keywords: travel writing, creative writing, travel, soul of place, soul places

 

THE SOUL OF PLACE : IDEAS & EXERCISES FOR CONJURING THE GENIUS LOCI

SIGNATURES IN STONE: A BOMARZO MYSTERY

Published by Pleasure Boat Studio, 2013, 2023

 

"AN INTELLIGENT SUMMER MYSTERY, MUCH TO SAVOR HERE" LIBRARY JOURNAL

"THE BOOK BEWITCHES"   MYSTERY SCENE

 

(2013, 2023) An old villa, a garden of monstrous statues,  4 people victims of themselves and a sassy white cat -- these are the characters in Signatures in Stone.  In Fascist-era Italy, four travelers explore the eerie Monster Park of Bomarzo whose 16th-century statues are believed to encode an alchemical secret. When a murder in the park shocks the group, Daphne becomes the prime suspect. To clear her name, she must confront her own demons and crack the code of the Monster Park, discovering therein the source of its life-transforming power.


 WINNER: Daphne DuMaurier Award for Best Mystery & Suspense Writing 


"Scary & satisfying. Lappin's people are as dangerous and compelling as her Italy." Nina Auerbach, Our Vampires, Ourselves.

"An intelligent summer mystery. Much to savor here. " Library Journal

"The book bewitches." Mystery Scene Magazine

 

Genre: Historical Mystery. Art History Mystery. Occult Mystery

Keywords:  Bomarzo.  Myth.  Dark.  Tarot. Italian gardens. Alchemy

Settings:  1920, Italy, Bomarzo, Tuscia

Similar to: The Cloisters

 

FOR MORE RESOURCES, REVIEWS, VIDEOS, INTERVIEWS related to this book, please see My Book Page for Signatures in Stone

SIGNATURES IN STONE: A BOMARZO MYSTERY

KATHERINE'S WISH

A Novel About the Life of Katherine Mansfield 

2009 Gold Medal Winner, IPPY Awards. 

2010 Honorable Mention Hoffer Awards

2009 Finalist: Foreword Book of the Year Fiction

"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, as if, anticipating other guests, she simply stepped from the room to display a vase of flowers or a platter's mounded figs. --Joyce J. Townsend, Rain Taxi

"Linda Lappin has immersed herself in Mansfield's life, and merged from it with a story to to narrate on her own terms, a fiction charged with the enthusiasm of a good researcher, and carried through with a novelist's verve." Vincent O'Sullivan, editor The Letters of Katherine Mansfield Vol V

"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

Lappin's intensely imagined novel will satisfy readers unfamiliar with Mansfield as well as those already intrigued by her. Desmond O' Grady, South China Post

 


Genre: Biographical fiction,  Historical fiction

Keywords:  Bloomsbury, Women Writers, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Virginia Woolf

Setting: London, Fontainebleau

Similar to: The White Garden

KATHERINE'S WISH

LISTEN NOW : A PUBLIC OF TWO

RADIO PLAY ADAPTED FROM KATHERINE'S WISH, PRODUCED BY YORICK RADIO PODCASTS

the play explores the intense, competitive friendship between two of modernism's most iconic women writers: Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf.

LISTEN NOW : A PUBLIC OF TWO

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.


 

BACK IN PRINT AT LAST!

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

 

Genre: Biographical fiction,  Historical fiction

Keywords:  Bloomsbury, Women Writers, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Virginia Woolf

Setting: London, Fontainebleau

Similar to: The White Garden