Monday, October 13, 2014

Diana Cachey Visits with her What Happens in Venice Series and A Giveaway of 3 Prize Packs!



Favorite Things to do in Venice by Diana Cachey

#1) Go in every church, no matter how humble. Great art lurks inside. Mind blowing art!
#2) Get a boat pass and ride it everywhere … night and day. Especially at night.
#3) See the violin concert at the Church of San Vidal. See it twice.
#4) Enjoy an expensive coffee or drink, served by tuxedoed waiters, at an outdoor café in San Marco when music is playing. Each cafe has its own music. The cafés alternate play so you can hear them all from one spot.
#5) Go to the top of the San Marco tower. Go at sunset if it is a clear day. It’s always worth the wait. When the bell gongs, you might weep.
#6) Go to San Marco around midnight to watch the clock “boys” (statues at top) gong the bell, twelve times, in an otherwise silent eerie square.
A word about San Marco: People complain that St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) is too touristy, bustling and full of pigeons. Really? It is also breathtaking. Night or Day. 
I could do #4, #5, #6 during every stay and every day. It always looks (and sounds) different.
#7) Walk in the afternoon parade of Venetians on the Zattere along Guidecca Canal. Sit in the sun on a terrace and get some ice cream. It’s always sunny on the Zattere, especially in the afternoon when everything else in Venice gets shadowed.
#8) Walk, walk, walk and walk. Explore, get lost, stop at shops and cafes.
#9) Remember to look up. All the good stuff is up.
#10) Ride the public boat to Murano (for glass), Burano (for lace and colored houses) and Torcello (for peace and the oldest churches in the lagoon).
Want a few more?
#11) Hang out at an outdoor cafe in Rialto on the Grand Canal. Sure, some folk will say it is a tourist trap. Okay. Eat, drink, watch and hang there anyway.
#12) Drink coffee or spritz at wine bars and nibble on finger foods. Explore to find the hidden ones then eat tramezzini and cicchetti (see recipes included in Lagoon Lure, Book Two).
#13) Lucky number thirteen: Pastry Shop!
#14) I almost forgot, RIDE IN A GONDOLA! Better yet, learn to row like a Venetian.
My personal favorite suggestion -- and it is my most important, shortest list of all -- go back to Venice again. Don’t try to see it all in one trip. 
Do you have a preferred spot in Venice that I missed? PLEASE post it at www.WhatHappensInVenice.com.  Also go to my YouTube channel for videos of these sites.


Lagoon Lure
What Happens In Venice
Book Two
Diana Cachey

ISBN-13: 978-1500334529
ISBN-10: 1500334529 
LCCN: 2014911793       

Number of pages: 160
Word Count: 40,000

Book Description:

The Venetian ghosts, ancient protectors of the Republic, continue to haunt Louisa Mangotti, the beautiful American lawyer working as an Interpol expert for the police.

She no longer scoffs at the ghosts, who plant clues to help solve a hushed up crime that threatens Venice, but she still suspects her bad boy ex-lover, Matteo, has crafted a plan to distract her from his own involvement in a possible murder.

Nonetheless she’s forced to depend on him in deciphering clues, including diving with him on a shipwreck in the lagoon. Her sister, who communes with ghosts & has arrived to rescue Louisa, is lured away from the chase into a steamy affair with a possible phantom.

Another feisty foreigner, Louisa’s best friend Rebecca, who goes by her vacation name, Rouge, spices up the action and adds to the antics when she visits for Carnival and to sample the Venetian charm and romance. More sexy men, as well as ghosts, distract the women as they follow a maze of cryptic clues & questionable messengers.

The three women fall deeper into the whirlpool of Venice, its wonderful sights, and alluring men while they navigate the stormy course which they are following. 

EXCERPT #1:
          Venice always delivered. For thousands of years she spread out her bounty for swarms of people who feasted upon her beauty. They stayed in ornate palaces or luxury hotels and paraded in stylish fashions. They admired diverse art, listened to sweet music, sampled delicious food.     
They also enjoyed plentiful romantic opportunities.    
Ah, the romantic allure of Venice. It continues to this day. Indeed, soon after Barbara’s arrival, Venice offered her no less than three handsome men. Now there stood her sister, Louisa, who begged to hear the dirt on two of them but knew nothing of the third man, the one Barbara wanted most.  She planned to keep him a secret.    
Barbara looked around and tried to take it all in, all that Venice had to offer. She saw in front of her a small island, which sat placidly in the lagoon and proudly displayed its huge monastic bell tower. Although a massive presence, this tower was easily dwarfed by the one it faced -- the more famous one -- the one that housed the bells of San Marco. She gazed across the water, let the reflecting sun’s rays warm her face and both Venetian towers began to toll their bells behind her and before her. They echoed across the lagoon, reverberated throughout the tranquil setting. Barbara took note of the bells. She’d been trained by her Italian friends to pay particular attention to what she’d been the thinking in that precise moment these bells began to chime.   
She’d been thinking about secrets. That third man. He must remain her secret.
Thus began her diversion, a long philosophical theory about her twin orange cats.                
“Back home in Seattle,” she said, “my cats confuse and distract me during morning meditation, just like those two Venetian men did my first night in Venice. The two inquisitive cats circle my cushion then jump on the table where I offer blessings of flowers and candy. They sniff and inspect as if they’ve never seen the ritual before.”   
Louisa yawned.   
“Those cats seem to see me anew each day, as a thing they need to supervise, approve or inspect. Eventually, they settle nearby to meditate on their own. They observe my struggle to quiet my mind while they remain perfect little meditators. Those two Venetian men were the same. While I was nervous and disquieted, they just purred.”         
Louisa frowned.
 
Love Spirits
What Happens In Venice
Book One
Diana Cachey

Genre: Romance/paranormal.

ISBN: 1481031767
ISBN: 9781481031769

Number of pages: 160
Word Count: 40,000 

Tagline: Among the romantic canals of Venice—and oh so many Italian distractions—can a stunning American lawyer and her psychic sister help the Ghosts of Venice solve a hushed-up crime?

Book Description:

Louisa Mangotti is a gorgeous American lawyer and Interpol expert who, after being offered a job working with the international crime unit in Venice, receives a mysterious postcard from the Venetian Ghosts, the ancient protectors of the Republic. But Louisa assumes her bad-boy ex, Matteo, sent it in a quixotic attempt to gain her attention.  Louisa may have dismissed the ghosts, but the ghosts aren’t quite done with her.

When the bodies of two glassmakers wash up on Murano Island, the cryptic messages persist. Reluctantly, Louisa calls upon Matteo to help decipher the clues. And before she knows it, a flame that was never fully extinguished is rekindled.  Sensing that her sister is in over her head, Barbara Mangotti rushes to the rescue, only to be lured away by two handsome Venetian men.  

With time running out, can the two beauties solve a crime that could threaten the city of Venice itself?



Keywords: Chick lit mystery, Venice fiction, Ghosts of Venice, Paranormal mystery, Contemporary women novels

Book Trailers:





What Happens In Venice -- A Trinity

Book One, Love Spirits
Book Two, Lagoon Lure
Book Three, Magic Island

Excerpt #1: 

From the Top of Our Great Bell Tower Saint Mark Square Venice, Italy 
Dear wide-eyed tourist, Don’t go to Venice.            
But if you do, don’t fall in -- in a canal, in love or into Venice itself. As if you have a choice. Hear us cackling?        
Listen. We came to warn you about La Serenissima, the Most Serene One, as Venice has been called since before the Middle Ages. You will not heed our warning and you will come looking for us. How do we know? It happens every time a Venetian ghost story is told.   
As ancient protectors of the Venetian republic, we ghosts guard her virtues of which she has many. One reason we love her, and you will too, is that she is stuck in time. Did you know Venice functions without motorcars or trucks? We don’t like motorcars or trucks. Hundreds of tiny islands sewn together by foot bridges leaves no need for noisy, fume-spewing vehicles, thankfully.           
We prefer floating.     
Our classic transport is the gondola. Mostly reserved for you tourists now, gondolas are and always have been helmed by the most prestigious oarsmen in the world -- highly trained gondoliers who stand while rowing through the labyrinth of canals. They don’t mind when we ride with or without you while they serenade us with opera, Frank Sinatra songs and romantic favorites.   
Ah yes, romance. As one visitor put it, “It’s their schtick, a Venetian ploy, an act to get sexy with you.” It is true. Venice equals romance equals sex.        
If the shadows of Venice frighten you or you feel like you’re in a dream, have fun with it, float with us. We are watching over you. We want to further your journey to a more magical life because we think a person is charmed by a trip to La Serenissima.    
It could change your soul forever. Just ignore this cautionary tale.  We remain in your service, The Venetian Ghosts



About the Author:

Diana Cachey is a licensed attorney, published academic, and former adjunct law professor. She also holds a BA in English, and while in law school, she was the first female editor in chief of her university’s law review. The author of the novel Love Spirits, she has trained with several New York Times best-selling writers, including Robert Allen, with more than seventy-two million books sold. For more than a decade, Cachey has been traveling to Venice, the setting of her novel, on extended trips several times a year. The cafés, restaurants, and many other haunts of Venice play a prominent role in her sexy paranormal mystery-romance about a beautiful American lawyer guided by the Ghosts of Venice in the investigation of a hushed-up crime.



@dianacachey



Tour Giveaway ends September 1

3 prize packs with a signed book and custom beaded bookmark- open to US Shipping


Link to grab code

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Tour Giveaway 2 starts September 15- open to US Shippiung

2 signed copies each of both Love Spirits and Lagoon Lure,

2 Venetian Carnival masks,

2 porcelain Venetian mask-shaped wall hangings (approx six inches high)



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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ciao Aubrie & Flutey Words Readers, thanks so much for having my on the blog. Hope you get to visit Venice soon & use my suggestions. Or else just watch my videos or read the book sand FEEL like you are there. GOOD LUCK to all who entered the giveaway! Love, DIana