Bookworm Press

I just finished a two-day free book giveaway on Amazon Select. It was a wild ride! Within one day, my two novels soared up to #5 and #67 in the free Kindle book ranks and the books were downloaded over 24,000 times at the US site, 1,200 times at the U.K and even the German site showed over 50 giveaways.

So, while I am excited about the numbers that resulted from the freebie days, what gets my heart beating even faster is the realization that there are people out there who read what I wrote. Some simply enjoy the stories, some may not like them, but for some they resonate on a deeper level. I received several emails from readers in Canada, thanking me for one of the books they read. And a reader in Germany wrote a review of An Uncommon Family and mentioned that he could relate on a very personal level to Karla’s desperate search for a real family. Wow. These kinds of personal statements from people all over the world make me feel that I don’t just write for myself but that I am able to communicate something which matters to someone else as well. That is a deeply satisfying feeling and one that keeps me going on the path I chose.

I would like to thank all my readers and fellow authors and friends for the encouraging words and the support I received.

Today – Friday, 1/27, is the last day my novels (ebook versions) about love, art, and family are available for free on Amazon. GRAB THEM while you can. Curl up on your favorite sofa and travel to Switzerland, Peru, Italy, New York, and Guadalajara, Mexico!

To say that the book is entertaining is an understatement. It is a real page-turner, devilishly funny, engaging, and sensitive. It deals in an insightful way with problems of love, friendships, and relationships we all struggle with sometimes. And it gives us a fascinating, tongue-in-cheek picture of the world of journalism and the media.

Molly for all her blunders is someone you just have to like. All the characters are well-developed, vivid, and genuine. I particularly enjoyed the exchange between Molly and her best buddy, Randy. What a riot!

Another successful story by a very talented author!                  

I live in two countries and that’s exciting. By there is another side to it: the feeling of rootlessness and the longing for a permanent home.

Home

With Christmas looming once again
I drag gifts across town
board a plane heading for
what used to be home
always looking for that
     Hello dear
              so glad to see you

Old smells
the pulsing of familiar blood
some sense of lasting love
in a town of faces growing faint with time
friends scattered in Los Angeles
Zurich
            Oakland
Santa Fe

Baby boots kick
a happy squeal and quick kiss
eyes sparkle
     then languish

flexible
     fuzzy
           relationships

This aerodynamic tumbling
     leaves stretch-marks
in my heart

Here I am
still searching the earth
     for a home

(from Path of Fire)

I’m a book addict. Seriously. I have the same withdrawal symptoms drug addicts describe: I get depressed, nervous, jittery–you name it–if I don’t have a book to read, either on my bookshelf or on my Kindle. Ever since I got that wonderful reading device, I have been able to feed my addiction and hold the symptoms at bay more easily.

I REREAD books.

Okay, I know lots of people reread books they really like, so what’s so unusual about it? Well, ahem, I reread books I like many times; we’re talking ten, twenty, thirty times and more. No kidding! That’s how serious my addiction is.

I just put back one of those books I reread I don’t know how many times back on the bookshelf. It’s a novel by Anita Brookner, Hotel Du Lac, a novel that takes place in Geneva, Switzerland. Anita Brookner is one those prolific more traditional British authors who write in different genres. Most of her novels deal with flawed human beings who struggle with love, identity, relationships–the stuff that novels have been made of since time immemorial. But she isn’t the only author whose books I keep rereading.

Why do I reread the same books again and again? Of course, I have to like or love the book in the first place. But still, I mean I know the plot, I know exactly what happens. One reason is perhaps that I read books not just as a reader but also as a writer. Each time I read a book again, I discover something new: an image I hadn’t noticed before, an interesting sentence structure, etc. However, that’s only half the reason. I reread books even before I started to seriously write myself.

The only thing I can explain my book fetish is that fact that when I read, I leave this world and enter into the world the author creates for me. I travel to distant places, I slip into different personalities, I experience life through a different sensibility. I get totally absorbed in the book and this happens every time I read the book.

I guess it could be worse; I could be addicted to a more dangerous substance. The only drawback is the fact that I am also an author and have to write books, not just read them. And right now, I’m struggling with my writing and boy; it’s so much easier to read. So I indulge myself until my author voice hits me over the head and I throw the book away and pick up my writing pad. I struggle through a few pages, feel better, toss my pad and–yes, you guessed it–grab the book again.

Am I the only one afflicted with this “disease,” this book fetish? I hope not!

Microsoft, you betrayed me. We have been partners for a very long time. Back in the “good old days,” eons ago, my husband and I bought our first PC, an IBM with the DOS operating system and a whole 64 K of memory. Talk about slow. But I was so proud, typing away in my first word processing program. I think the only other thing on there was a spreadsheet. The screen was black and white, well actually green and white.

And then, you came along, actually a young nerdy whiz kid and slapped Windows on top of DOS and Microsoft was born. Well, that’s roughly how it was. You provided computers and software for the everyday Joe and Jane–like me. Now, you weren’t perfect, far from it. Your system was bumpy and buggy, but it did for me what it was supposed to do, most of the time.

I mean, nobody is perfect. There are bumps in every relationship, but I loved you with your mistakes. Until a few days ago that is, when you broke my heart. Yes, you did. Don’t look at me with your big blinking eyes as if you didn’t know.

You provided a very nice program suite in Windows Vista, called Microsoft Office Live Small Business or, for short MS OLSB. It contained all kinds of fun stuff, such as email AND a nifty tool to create a website–and it was free. Nice and very generous of you!

I’m an author and translator and I run a one-woman business with a very modest income. A website is a very important part of my business. So I spent hours and weeks creating and maintaining my website. I am still working at it, fine-tuning it, adding to it.

A few days ago, I logged onto OLSB and found out by accident that this tool was going to be discontinued in a couple of months and it would be replaced by a new version, Microsoft Office 365 and no longer would it be free but you had to pay a monthly fee to use it.

Okay, I thought. I guess the freebie was too good to be true. Now, I wouldn’t mind paying the modest fee you are planning to charge for an upgrade. It would still be a good deal. So, I read on and then my world collapsed. Yes, Microsoft, you almost gave me a heart attack.

There it says: the website I had invested so much time and effort to create would be DELETED! And I would have to save all my documents and pictures and copy and paste the whole thing over to the new version. Huh? Are you freakin kidding me? Aren’t you the number one software developer in the whole darn world? You’re trying to tell me you can’t have a procedure to migrate the websites we created automatically to the new system? What? Are you stupid?

I don’t think so. You are far too experienced NOT to have the capability to do that. I think the reason is that you don’t give a hoot about your clients. Why should you care about us? After all SMALL business says it all, doesn’t it? We are too small and unimportant for you. Customer service for the little guys? What for?

I tell you why you should care. I read the many comments on the forum of loyal customers just like me who are irate and disgusted and can’t believe what’s happening. Many of them, including me, are looking for other website creation tools and hosting companies. I am in the process of recreating my website in another program–I am using the Expand2Web SmallBiz Theme from WordPress and I signed up with a different hosting company. And I tell you one thing; the customer support from these guys so far has been splendid. I call Bluehost.com (thanks, Scott Nicholson, for recommending it!) and within seconds I get a real life person in the U.S. on the phone, helping me out.

You know, Microsoft, you’re huge and perhaps you’re too big to care for small fries like me. However, in today’s tough competition in the software and web industry, where comparable programs and systems compete furiously, the one distinguishing factor between the companies is CUSTOMER SERVICE. Got it, Microsofty?

Well, back to my website design–without you, honey. I’m moving on, MS. Hasta la vista, hombre! Ciao, Adieu.

This is the second part of the picture journey through my novels. Love of a Stonemason is the sequel to An Uncommon Family. Since both my novels take place in different countries, I thought it would be fun for readers (both past and prospective) to see some of the places which inspired me and made their way into my books.

More information about the first book, An Uncommon Family, as well as the pictures to it, you can find here.

Blurb for 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 the story about the struggle of two artists with their past, their family, their creativity, and their love for each other. 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.

And now, sit back, relax and enjoy:

Love of a Stonemason – a journey in pictures

Good and well, but now what? There are lots of possible scenarios. I keep switching from one to the other. I keep changing things and then abandon the ideas again.

Possibilities:
1) He was pushed, because he was a danger to someone? Whom? Why?

3) He had an affair, fathered a child, and someone killed him? The lover? The lover’s husband?
4) He was involved in some shady business and ???
5) ???
6) ???

Oh, what a crack of you know what! I toss the notebook aside and go switch on the espresso machine.

I have been talking to my friends from all walks of life and reading other author’s blogs and the one question that keeps coming up in various forms can perhaps be summarized as follows: “Am I on the right path? Should I turn left or right? What if I find out after several years that I took the wrong turn, that I should’ve done this or done that instead of wasting my time on this or that?”

“I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.”

Have a wonderful day!