Bookworm Press

Here is the first chapter of my novel “Love of a Stonemason.” It is available both as Kindle ebook and trade paperback at Amazon and in different ebook formats at Smashwords. Average customer reviews: 5 stars.

Blurb: The young painter, Karla Bocelli, is no stranger to 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.

Karla Bocelli hated the painting. She had worked at it off and on during the past year and never managed to finish it. But no matter how much she disliked it, she couldn’t convince herself to destroy it. It seemed to haunt her.
     It was warm and muggy in early June in the south of Switzerland. Patches of mist hugged the mountains behind Lago Maggiore. Karla clasped her artist’s portfolio under her arm and brushed a strand of hair from her damp forehead. She was on the way to the old part of Locarno, thinking, once again, of the troublesome picture.
     She saw the car just as she stepped into the crosswalk. An old beat-up Fiat screeched to a stop within a few inches away from her. Karla jumped back and dropped her portfolio, spilling its content onto the pavement. Her heart thudded and she took deep breaths, trying to calm the queasy feeling in her stomach. That smell. Burnt rubber.
     A young man got out of the car and stared at her, stunned. “Are you all right?”
     Karla, still dazed, nodded. She bent down and began to pick up her drawings. A few pedestrians stopped but when they realized that nothing major had happened, they walked on.
     The driver’s dark voice rose to an angry pitch. “Jesus Christ. What’s the matter with you? You practically threw yourself in front of my car. I could’ve killed you. Are you suicidal or something?”
     “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching.” Karla slid the papers back into her portfolio.
     “Yeah, well, that’s obvious. Wake up, for heaven’s sake.”
     His belligerent voice angered Karla, who was gradually regaining her composure. She stood up, flipped her long dark hair back over her shoulders, and faced him. “I said, I was sorry.”
     He was tall, broad-shouldered, and husky, with longish dark tousled hair and green eyes, which now glowered at her. He must have been her age or a little older, perhaps in his mid twenties. As Karla continued to pick up her drawings, he approached and bent down to help her.
     “You’re an artist?” he asked in a friendlier tone as he looked at one of the charcoal sketches.
     “Yes.” Karla snatched the paper out of his hand.
     “I hope your pictures aren’t ruined.”
     “What do you care? Why do you have to drive like a maniac?”
     “Great,” he shouted. “Now it’s my fault?”
     “This is a pedestrian zone, in case you haven’t noticed.” Karla grabbed her portfolio and stepped back onto the sidewalk. Her heartbeat had slowed to almost normal but her knees still felt wobbly.
     “Do you always jump in front of moving cars without looking?” He turned around and walked away. “Airhead,” he mumbled, shot her a last angry look, got into the car, and slammed the door. He revved the engine which died several times. The car finally started and he drove off, leaving a cloud of stinking smoke behind.
     “Jerk. Perhaps a new muffler would help. Never heard of air pollution?” Karla crossed the street after carefully checking the road for traffic. Still shaken, she made her way through the old part of Locarno toward the art store to drop off her drawings to be framed for the upcoming opening.
     Karla was a young artist whose first exhibition of her paintings and drawings opened the following Friday. The gallery belonged to a friend and patron of hers. Silvia and her husband were art lovers and devoted some of their time and money to help fledgling artists show their work.
     Having recovered somewhat, Karla was able to take in the sights of the old part of this city she loved: the boutiques and small shops along the narrow cobblestone streets, the quaint houses painted in ocher, orange, and pink, the piazzas with their pots of cornflowers and red and white geraniums, the small simple Romanesque and the more ornate Baroque churches. Karla inhaled the mixture of scents so familiar to her from her childhood when she came here often with her mother and grandmother: the smell of espresso, of grilled meat and fish as well as herbs and spices from the restaurants, stores, and coffee bars.
     When Karla arrived at the gallery after dropping off her drawings at the art store, she looked through the tall shop window at the row of paintings on the wall. It was only now that the momentous event began to sink in. She was overcome by a surge of pride and excitement. My first exhibition. She knocked on the window. Silvia, who was already in the gallery moving chairs and folding tables, turned around and waved at her.
     “So, what do you think?” Silvia stepped back and motioned at Karla’s paintings. She was a woman in her fifties with a wild mane of graying hair. Her outfit was a mixture of femme fatale and hippy–low-cut, tight black top and long flowery skirt.
     “Great. I like the way you arranged them.” Karla studied the row of pictures. There were a few watercolor and acrylic landscapes with a calm Zen-like feel while many of her oil paintings exploded in fiery reds, yellows, and browns with a volcanic intensity. In addition, Karla had chosen a few more experimental pictures: landscapes which clashed with foreign objects, such as scrap metal, a computer sticking out of a flower. She wanted to strike a balance between paintings that might appeal to regular visitors and those that would receive more attention from art collectors.
     “I hope somebody shows up.” Karla sighed. “I’ve been looking forward to this, but now I’m getting nervous. Do you really think I put the right paintings up?”
     “Sure you did, they’re great. Relax.”
     “The last few of my drawings should be framed and ready by Thursday,” Karla said.
     “Good. I left space on the back wall for them. I ordered the snacks and the wine. So we’re ready. Don’t forget the bios. And don’t worry, the opening will be fabulous.” Silvia gave Karla a hug, enveloping her in a cloud of patchouli perfume.

By the time Karla arrived at the stone cottage she rented in the small village at the beginning of the Maggia Valley, the air had thickened. In the direction of Saint Gotthard, the mountain that divided the south from the north of Switzerland, towering heaps of dark clouds were churning, first signs of a thunderstorm.
     Karla filled the espresso pot with water and finely ground coffee and set it on the stove, then went into her studio, a room with a skylight and a window facing south. The owner, an artist himself, had the skylight installed since the windows in this typical southern Swiss house were small and the lighting wasn’t good enough for painting. Sitting in front of her easel, Karla began to mix her paints. The picture she was working on was the one she had been thinking about earlier that morning when she almost got hit by the car.
     The half-finished oil painting was different from her normally intense colorful landscapes. It was a stark, somber picture, almost devoid of color. It showed the stylized outline of a woman in black, a dark, lonely figure standing at the edge of the canvas who covered her face with her hands. The rest was empty space, except for a glowing spot of color at the right upper corner.
     Karla had started the painting after the unexpected death of her aunt the year before. She had been Karla’s only remaining blood-relative, aside from her father, who lived in Peru and whom she barely knew. Her aunt had raised Karla since she was five years old after her mother and grandmother had been killed in a car crash. She and Karla had been very close and her death had been a devastating blow.
     Scanning the picture with half-closed eyes, Karla picked up a brush, dipped it in a mixture of grey and green paint, then stopped to examine the painting again. The slender, dark figure looked forlorn and lost. Not even the color in the back was comforting. It was orange-red, the sun of the evening, which had lost its warmth.
     Why do I even bother with this thing? Frustrated with the timid and self-effacing woman in the painting, Karla tossed a sheet over it and put the picture once again into the storage room next to her studio.
     The espresso pot hissed on the stove and the scent of fresh coffee filled the room and dispelled the smell of paint. Karla poured herself a cup and decided to drink it black; perhaps it would ease the tension in her head. The slight headache she had woken up with had intensified during the day, in part due to the change of air pressure before the storm and in part, perhaps, because of her tumultuous morning with the young man.
     Karla stood by the kitchen window, sipping her coffee, savoring its slightly bitter taste. She tried to picture the man again, his muscular figure, his longish dark hair and, particularly, his expressive green eyes. Too bad they hadn’t met under more pleasant circumstances. In spite of his angry outburst, she felt a certain curiosity about him.
     A breeze kicked up and shook the azaleas in front of the house. The large creamy-white and red flowers of the horse chestnut trees swayed back and forth. Karla stepped outside. It smelled of rain, damp and musty. The meadows in front of the house were filled with blue, purple, and yellow wildflowers and down the hill the birches, ashes, and tall hazels along the river Maggia leaned into the wind.
     Karla went back inside and began to prepare a canvas for a new painting. She pulled the cloth tightly across the stretcher bars with the help of canvas pliers and fastened it with staples. After covering the canvas with a base layer of gesso, she set it aside to dry. She turned on her computer and printed out a stack of bios for the exhibition.
     Outside, daylight was fading fast as smoky gray storm clouds were beginning to darken the sky. After a quick dinner of soup and bread topped with cheese, Karla tried to do some sketching but nothing came of it. She was tired and her head still ached. She took an aspirin and went to bed early. Listening to the wind whooshing through the trees, she fell asleep.

Later in the night, Karla woke up drenched in sweat. The bursting of broken glass and a woman’s desperate scream for help were interrupted by claps of thunder. At first, she was unable to distinguish between the noises in her dream and the sounds of reality. A whiff of burnt rubber and acid hung in the air.
     Karla peeled back her down comforter and sat up, pushed herself to the edge of the bed, and lowered her feet to the floor. She brushed a tangle of hair from her wet forehead and took a deep breath. It had been the same nightmare she had suffered from since childhood, but the thunder and lightning were real. The grandfather clock in the next room struck eleven times. She must have just fallen asleep when the thunder woke her.
     Karla got up and looked out the window. Lightning lit up the sky and the shadows of clouds swept across the meadows. The trees bent over and swayed in the gusts of wind. She went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water, then sat by the window. Sipping the cold liquid, she tried to squelch the shreds of troubling images her dream had left her with: the mangled bodies, the blood, the broken glass, the fire.
     “Mama?” Karla whispered into the dark. Her eyes filled with tears. “All I have of you is a scream for help. I barely even remember what you looked like.”
     There was no answer, only the thunder in the distance. Karla got up and opened the door to the patio. She stepped outside as it began to rain. First, large individual drops hit her arms and face, then the clouds burst. She bent her head back, closed her eyes, and let the rain pound on her face for a few seconds, enjoying the harsh cleansing sensation. The water soaked through her T-shirt. She began to shiver and went inside, pulled off her top and grabbed a towel to dry herself. Back in bed, she listened to the now steady and peaceful sounding rain and fell asleep again.

A fortunate find:
“I am only one-quarter of the way through this big, beautiful novel, but am enjoying it so much that I wanted to post a review.

LOVE OF A STONEMASON gives readers Europe and South America. A few examples: the Nordfoehn, a dry northern wind; the turning of the seasons in Switzerland; the look and feel of Toro Muerto, a mysterious South American site containing hundreds of carved rocks. Descriptions are vivid without being overwritten. Christa Polkinhorn makes me feel as if I know these places where I have never been.

But my enthusiasm for the novel goes beyond its very considerable achievements in description. I like Karla and Andreas, the main characters. I can imagine having dinner with them, drinking wine with them, sharing conversation.

They are GOOD people. Not goody-goody types or one-dimensional caricatures of virtue, but decent people yearning for satisfaction in both love and vocation. These two artists are falling in love. I am glad to be sharing their journey.”

Lindsay Edmunds, Pennsylvania

My novel “An Uncommon Family” is now at the editing stage. One of the characters also appears in my published novel “Love of a Stonemason.” Both books, however, are independent from each other and can be read in any order.

The following is a blurb and the first chapter. This is a work in progress and there will certainly be changes. Bur for now: enjoy and leave a comment, if you wish. Feedback highly appreciated!

The working title is:

A chance meeting between a single 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 Bocelli, who lost her mother and grandmother in a car crash, has a hard time accepting the reality of death. Anna Frei, her aunt and guardian, struggles with the shocking deception by her former husband and her shattered confidence in men, and Jonas Bergman, artist and teacher, mourns the death of his wife.

Through their common concern for the welfare of the talented but troubled child, Anna and Jonas become close friends and eventually develop feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. However, when Anna discovers a sinister secret in Jonas’s past, which reminds her of the cowardly behavior of her former husband, her growing confidence in him is shattered. While the two adults have come to an impasse, young Karla, who wishes nothing more than having an intact family with Jonas and Anna as parents, decides to take matters into her own hands. With the help of her friend Maja, an experienced schemer, she develops a plan to bring the two uncooperative adults back together. The plan, however, has serious flaws and as it begins to unravel, Karla is forced to learn some difficult lessons.

An Uncommon Family is a story about loss and betrayal as well as the power of love and forgiveness.

Sounds interesting? Here is the first chapter, still in draft stage, so it will most likely encounter some changes.

     Karla took another lick from her ice-cream cone, then turned around and peered through the window of the art shop, where her aunt picked up two framed pictures. When she looked back at the sidewalk, her breath caught.
     “Mama?” she whispered.
     She saw the woman only from behind, but the bounce in her step, the long, reddish-blond hair flowing down her back, swaying left and right, the tall, slender figure–it must be her mother. She tossed the rest of the ice cream into the trashcan, got up, and ran after the woman.
     “Mama!” she called, as the woman got ready to cross the street. The light turned from blinking red to solid red, just as the woman reached the other side. Karla rushed after her, barely aware of the honking around her or of the shrill warning-bell of the blue-and-white street car. She heard someone yell at her but by then she had arrived at the other side. The woman was walking along the river toward the Lake of Zurich.
     “Mama, wait!” Karla bumped into someone.
     “Watch it, kiddo.” A man stepped aside.
     “Mama . . .”
     The woman finally turned around and looked back, scanning the people behind her, then walked on. Karla stopped dumb-founded. It was the face of a stranger.
     A wave of despair washed over her. Not believing that she could have been so wrong, she started to run again. She didn’t see the slight indentation in the pavement. As she fell, she barely noticed the searing pain in her knees; the disappointment hurt more. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Mama would have helped her. Mama would have picked her up, hugged her, even sang a little tune to her to make her feel better. But her mother was gone.
     “Are you hurt, honey?” a dark voice said. Karla felt a hand on her back. “Come on, let me see.”
     A pair of strong arms lifted her up. She looked into a face with a grey-white beard, and kind, blue eyes below thick tufts of eyebrows. The man was tall and sturdy, with wildish white hair. He reminded her of Saint Nicholas. But it was summer and Saint Nicholas only appeared in December.
     “Are you here alone?” he asked. “Where’s your mother?”
     The question brought a new flood of tears. “I thought it was Mama.” Karla managed to say, her chest heaving with sobs.
     “Karla, what happened? Why did you run away?” Aunt Anna came rushing toward her, clutching her purse and a large package. “I thought I’d lost you. Jesus, what happened to your knees?” She bent down, put the package on the concrete and examined Karla’s legs. Brushing a strand of wavy brown hair out of her face, she peered at the man with penetrating grey-blue eyes, the color of ice. “What’s going on here?”
     “I just happened to walk by when she fell,” he explained. “She said something about looking for her mother. Are you her mother?”
     Anna shook her head. “No, I’m her aunt. Her mother . . . died half a year ago.”
     “I’m so sorry.” The old man gently touched Karla’s cheek. “But she thought she saw her mother.”
     Anna sighed. “She still hasn’t accepted the truth.” She turned to Karla. “Tell me what happened, sweetie?”
     Karla told her in-between sobs that a woman had walked by who looked exactly like her mama.
     “But you know, that’s not possible, don’t you?” Aunt Anna hugged her. Karla leaned her face against Anna’s chest and poured her sorrow into her sweater. It was soft but didn’t smell like her mama’s. Anna waited for her to calm down. “We have to take care of your knees.”
     “There’s a pharmacy right over there? I’m sure they have something to clean the wound and some bandages. May I?” Saint Nicholas gave Anna an inquiring look.
     Anna nodded and the man lifted Karla up. His thick hair tickled her cheek. Karla wrinkled her nose. He gave off a whiff of smoke, which reminded her of Anna’s wood stove. It felt a little comforting.
     At the pharmacy, a friendly lady took care of Karla’s knees. She wiped them clean, trying not to hurt Karla, who flinched and gave an occasional sob. “Sorry, hon, but we don’t want it to get infected.”
     While the woman bandaged Karla’s legs, Anna unwrapped the package she had been carrying. She handed Karla one of the pictures and held the other one up for her to see. “Don’t they look great?”
     Karla nodded with a weak smile. They did look nice. She barely recognized them again behind the glass and surrounded by a fine wooden frame. One of them showed a woman, sitting on a chair and holding a little girl in her arm. The woman had long reddish-brown hair and the girl’s hair was black. They were sitting in front of a house. The stones in the wall had an irregular shape, they looked a little bit like cobble-stones. It had taken Karla a while to make them look right. The other picture showed a large tree with large purple and cream-colored blossoms. It was the chestnut tree in front of Karla’s old home. She had painted the pictures with her favorite pastel pens.
     “They’re gorgeous,” Saint Nicholas said in his deep voice. “Who painted those?”
     “Karla did,” Aunt Anna said.
     Saint Nicholas starred at her, then at the pictures, then at Karla. “How old is she?”
     “Six,” Karla said, brushing the last tears off her face. Anna handed her a Kleenex.
     “And she painted those by herself, without help?” The man squinted as he scanned the pictures. The wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes deepened. He truly did look like Saint Nicholas.
     “Yes,” Anna said.
     “This child is very talented. Does she get any instruction?”
     “I’m actually looking for a teacher for her. She loves to draw and paint. If it was up to her, she’d do it all day long. And it seems to help her with . . . you know, the loss.”
     “Amazing.” Saint Nicholas shook his head and continued to scan the pictures. “Well, I happened to be a painter myself. I also teach a few children.” He looked at Karla and Anna with a serious face. “I’d love to have her as a student.”
     “I’ll think about it. That would be great,” Anna said.
     “Why don’t you check me out.” The man handed Anna a small card. “I have a website, too, with some links that give you a little more information. I finally broke down and tackled the internet with the help of a friend. I guess it’s almost a must in today’s world.” He laughed in his deep, sonorous voice. Then he became serious. “Whatever you decide, you don’t want a talent like this go to waste.”
     Anna studied his card. “Very interesting, Mr. Bergman.”
     “Call me Jonas,” the man said.
     “Anna,” Karla’s aunt said as the two shook hands.
     “You’re not Saint Nicholas?” Karla asked, surprised.
     Aunt Anna and the man laughed. “No, I’m sorry. You think I look like him?” He brushed through his wavy white hair.
     Karla nodded. “But you wouldn’t come in summer, would you?” She looked down at her neatly wrapped knees. The talk of drawing and painting had pulled her out of her deep misery. “Are you going to teach me?”
     The man smiled at her. “You talk this over with your aunt, all right?” Then he glanced at his watch. “Oops. I guess I missed my appointment.”
     “I’m so sorry,” Anna said. “We caused you all this trouble.”
     “Don’t worry. No problem at all.” He bent down and put a hand on Karla’s shoulder. “And, Karla, I know how much it hurts. I lost my dear wife a few years ago. We were together for over twenty years. I still miss her. But I can promise you, things will get better with time.”
     Karla took a deep breath and nodded. She had heard the words many times before. “Mejra lost her mother, too.”
     “Mejra is a friend of hers, a girl from Croatia,” Anna explained.

     At home, in their house in a small town near Zurich, Aunt Anna fixed lunch. She heated up the left-over bean and vegetable soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes. The smell of food awakened Karla’s appetite. She was quiet and thoughtful but no longer desperate.
     “He was a nice man,” she said, folding the colorful paper napkins she had made herself with potato stamps.
     “Would you like to take drawing and painting lessons from him?” Anna poured the soup into bowls and slid the toasted sandwiches onto the plates.
     Karla nodded. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
     “Cool, huh?” Anna smiled and gave the girl a hug.