Hot off the press: "An Uncommon Family" - Book One of "Family Portrait"

Just published my new novel An Uncommon Family, Book One of the Family Portrait series. Book Two, Love of a Stonemason was published in 2010. In other words, I wrote the second book before the first. I do things backward sometimes.

The novels, however, can be read in any order. The link between them is the main character, Karla, the young painter. Here are the blurbs to both novels:

An Uncommon Family:
A chance meeting between a middle-aged woman, a widower, and a semi-orphaned child in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, brings together three people who grapple with a past of loss and betrayal. Six-year-old Karla, whose mother died in a car crash, has a hard time accepting the loss. Anna, her aunt and guardian, struggles with her former husband’s deception and her shattered confidence in men, and Jonas, artist and teacher, mourns the death of his wife.

While trying to help Karla, a talented but troubled child, Anna and Jonas develop feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. The budding romance, however, hits a snag when Anna discovers a sinister secret in Jonas’s past. While the two adults have come to an impasse, young Karla takes matters into her own hands. Together with a friend, she develops a plan to bring the two uncooperative adults back together. The plan, however, creates havoc and as it begins to unravel, Karla is forced to learn some difficult lessons.

An Uncommon Family is a story about loss, lies, and betrayal but also about the healing power of love and forgiveness. It takes place in Switzerland, New York City, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

If you want to accompany Karla on her way to becoming a painter and grow as a person while struggling with turbulent love relationships, try Love of a Stonemason:

The young painter, Karla Bocelli, is all too familiar with loss. When she was five years old, her mother died in a car crash in the south of Switzerland. Her Peruvian father lives at the other end of the world, and a year ago, her aunt and guardian passed away. Now, at age twenty-four, Karla almost gets hit by a speeding car. As if this wasn't fateful enough, Andreas, the driver, turns out to be a sculptor and carver of tombstones.

In spite of his profession, Andreas is anything but morbid. Quick-tempered and intense, he exudes a rough-and-tumble energy. After a tumultuous start of their relationship, Karla comes to see in Andreas the "rock in her life," the perfect antidote to her fears of abandonment and bouts of depression. Andreas, however, wrestles with his own ghosts: an alcoholic father who abused him as a child and his own fits of anger. Together, the two artists must confront the demons that haunt them.

Love of a Stonemason is a story about the struggle of two artists with their past, their family, their creativity, and their love for each other. Told from the point of view of Karla, it depicts the world through her painter's sensibility. It takes the reader on a journey full of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds from the south of Switzerland to Italy and the Peruvian Andes.

SUMMER SPECIAL:
For a limited time only, both novels are available at Amazon for the Kindle (click on the cover icons on the right), at Barnes&Noble.com for the Nook and at Smashwords for multiple devices for ONLY 99 cents each. Get your summer reading at an affordable price!

Lindsay Edmunds granted me an interview at her lovely blog. Check it out!

Check out Neal Hock's great review!

More reviews on Amazon.

Ordinary lives and everyday people: a rich source for authors of fiction

The Wrong Bus, An Urban Christmas Story by John Noel Hampton - 5 Stars

I have been exploring a lot of different literary genres lately and I noticed that paranormal thrillers and romance, mysteries, science-fiction, and fantasy seem to be among the most popular ones these days. Whether you walk into an ordinary brick-and-mortar bookstore or peruse the online blogs, trolls, vampires, and werewolves glare or growl at you from every corner. You can’t help but wonder if the lives of “normal,” everyday human beings are no longer fit topics for literature.


Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those genres myself. I love a good mystery; I like a well-written fantasy and paranormal tale. But every once in a while, I long for an interesting book about Mr. Everyman and Mrs. Everywoman who deal with their everyday lives without interference by ghosts, witches, and paranormal happenings. And then I stumbled upon the story by John Noel Hampton, The Wrong Bus, An Urban Christmas Story.

The Wrong Bus takes place in Los Angeles, in both a middle-class environment and in the less well-to-do section of South Central. It depicts a few days in the lives of flawed but lovable characters. The middle-class, elderly white woman, Ida, is a good-hearted, somewhat naive person who doesn’t want to accept the fact that her only son was killed in Vietnam. Her African-American housekeeper and best friend, Madeline, has her own share of shattered dreams. Junior, a young black man, works hard and dreams of becoming a medical doctor in order to help his grandmother and escape the dreary environment of his upbringing and his dysfunctional mother. Maria, a Latin woman, who was fired from her job, turns to stealing in her desperation. Then there are neighbors, friends, cops, and criminals.

A series of coincidences, such as missing the right bus stop, brings these unlikely people together and sets in a motion a string of misunderstandings, wrong turns, false moves as well as lucky encounters. The story leads up to Christmas, but Christmas for the characters doesn’t mean a bunch of expensive presents or even an end to their problems. But it brings them closer to the true spirit of Christmas: love and compassion.

The Wrong Bus is a moving tale without being sentimental. The language is stark, interspersed with beautiful images and vivid descriptions. The magic is not conjured up by fairies, hobgoblins, witches, or trolls. It is created by the characters’ feelings, by moments of beauty in a rough environment. These people aren’t fantasy heroes; they struggle with their selfish desires, they are torn between wanting to take the easy way out of a situation and doing what is right. Yet they do find the courage to step outside their comfort zone, to take risks in order to help someone else.

The sign of a good story for me is one that I feel like reading over and over again and always discover something new. The Wrong Bus is such a story. I can only recommend it and I look forward to reading more by the same author.

Why I write only 5- and 4-Star Book Reviews

People are beginning to wonder why I only write four- or five-star reviews. The answer is simple. No, it's not to flatter or placate authors. I only review books that I love and that inspire and excite me. I am not a professional literary critic. I am a writer and avid reader and I want to write about books I feel good about. I know how hard it is to write a book, how time-consuming, and how exciting.

The writing process is a lot of sweat, interspersed with moments of elation and deep satisfaction. Once a book is finished and you find out that someone else likes it as well, that readers are inspired by it, that it means something to them, then, somehow, everything comes together. You forget all the heartache, the ripped-out hair, the self-doubt, and you bask, for a moment, in that warm feeling of being understood by someone, accepted, you delight in the knowledge that you have touched someone. That, to me, is worth more than the sale of books (which I like too, of course. I'm not Mother Teresa - oh, by the way, did you know she just turned 100? Talk about inspiration! Happy Birthday!)

Anyway, because I know how good it feels to receive a positive review, I enjoy doing this for other authors as well. I don't write book reviews on demand, because then I would have to review books I may not like and would have to give a lower score. And I don't want to do that.

There are enough reviewers out there who give 1- or 2- or 3-star reviews and that's fine for them. A negative review as long as it is respectful and sensitive can be very helpful for an author. (I am not talking about those insulting diatribes that attack an author personally or make unreasonable assumptions. I'm not talking about reviewers who are failed writers and take it out on those who still have the courage to write. You know what I mean.)

But for me:
4-Stars: I love it and have perhaps a suggestion how it could be made even better.

5-Stars: I love it. It's well-crafted, language and content are in sync. It may not be absolutely perfect, but I'm excited, it gives me joy and means something to me.

Happy Writing!