WIN an advance copy of my new novel, The Echoes of Love, this week with Goodreads…
Goodreads Book Giveaway The Echoes of Love by Hannah Fielding Giveaway ends December 06, 2013. See the giveaway details at Goodreads. Enter to win
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Recipe: Sicilian Arancini
In The Echoes of Love, one of the dishes that my heroine Venetia samples on a date to a Sicilian restaurant with Paolo is called arancini. It’s so delicious I thought I’d share with you some details today. Arancini are essentially golden brown rice balls. The dish dates back a
Dorsoduro, Venice: Home for a creative soul
The heroine of my new novel, The Echoes of Love, is English by birth but has settled in Venice, Italy. Venetia is an architect by training, but has specialised in mosaic restoration as an outlet for her passionate and creative side. Thus, what better part of Venice to choose as
Exclusive: Extract from my new novel, The Echoes of Love
The clock struck midnight just as Venetia went past the grand eighteenth-century mirror hanging over the mantelpiece in the hall. Instinctively she looked into it and her heart skipped a beat. In the firelight she noticed that he was there again, an almost illusory figure, leaning against the wall at
The Venetian masquerade: A haunting artwork
My new novel, The Echoes of Love, opens on the evening of the famous and flamboyant Venice Carnival, in which the city comes alive with revellers, many of whom attend masquerade parties and don the masks that are so much a part of Venetian heritage. The hero, Paolo, and the
Book review: Regret Not a Moment by Nicole McGehee
From the blurb: The year is 1930. Beautiful, witty Devon is the daughter of a prominent Virginia family. Many men have fallen under her spell, but none has captured her heart, until she meets New York tycoon John Alexander. Their future seems assured: they will marry, raise a family, turn
Madonna of the Salute Festival in Venice
In Venice, the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (known as the Salute) is an emblem of the city – a 17th-century Baroque Roman Catholic church in the Dorsoduro area that is a well-known landmark, visible from the Grand Canal and the Piazza San Marco for its mighty domed roof.
Choosing a book to read based on its length
Picture the scene: It’s a quiet Saturday in your local town, and the heavens have opened. Thankfully, you’re near your favourite book store, so you hurry there. Shaking off the water drops on the doormat, you consider your options: 1) wait at the door until the rain lessens, 2) do
Announcing The Echoes of Love Blog Tour 2013
I’m delighted to announce the tour for my new novel, The Echoes of Love, which will publish on 6th December. Do check out my interviews and guest posts with the following bloggers if you get the chance…
Witches’ mirrors
One of my guilty pleasures, I confess, is rummaging about in bric-a-brac, antique and curios shops, looking for items that catch my fancy – a particularly vividly coloured glass vase, for example, or a beautiful, old wooden chest. As I wrote the heroine of my new book, The Echoes of
Favourite poem: ‘Venice’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Rare is the poet or writer or artist who visits Venice and is not so inspired that the city finds its way into a creative work. The lines of the architecture, the colours in the clothes, the food, the water, the sky; the scents of votive candles in the churches
In the country
I love this familiar view around where I live, with the sea in the background.
Remembering my first ever trip to Venice
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Inspiration for my new book: The two faces of Venice’ in which I described first visiting the city as a young girl: I first visited Venice as a young child. Then, as now, I was wide-eyed and enchanted by the
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The romance – and sensuality – of sailing
My home in the South of France – a French mas (Provençal farmhouse) in Ste Maxime – affords beautiful views over the Mediterranean. I often write in the garden, in the shade on the terrace, or in my writing room if the heat is too much; and as I write
Supporting independent bookstores
For me, there are few pleasures that can compete with a half hour spent browsing in a bookstore. Canterbury and Dover, the main cities near my English home, offer a wealth of options, but for a special treat I venture to one of the quaint seaside towns on the Kentish
The writer’s need to experience – and retreat?
‘How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live,’ wrote Henry David Thoreau, the great American writer who famously retreated from life for two years to live in a house he’d built in a wood. In the work this retreat inspired, Walden, he
The library as Paradise
‘I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.’ So wrote Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. How many book lovers have since taken these words to heart? Here are just a few of the gifts on offer for those who find affinity with the quotation: (Sources: T-shirt; cushion; oak bookmark; metal
A little tour of the Cadiz covered market
One of my favourite television programmes at the moment is First Dates, a programme in which French maître d’ Fred Sirieix oversees couples dining together on blind dates in a London restaurant (and, more recently, at a French hotel). The focus of the show, of course, is an exploration of
When has an author written enough?
Emily Brontë – Wuthering Heights; Anna Sewell – Black Beauty; Margaret Mitchell – Gone with the Wind; Boris Pasternak – Doctor Zhivago; JD Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye; Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man; Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar… What do these authors have in common? They published
Romancing the moon
‘The moon lives in the lining of your skin.’ So wrote the poet Pablo Neruda in his ‘Ode to a Beautiful Nude’. This line resonated with me as I wrote my latest novel, Legacy. The heroine, born under a full moon, is Luna, which is Spanish for moon. Ruy, the
How do I love thee? Literary inspirations for Valentine’s Day
There are so many different ways to express that you love someone; often, though, it can be hard to find the words to encapsulate all the emotion within. When it comes to declarations of love, however, the words you write in your Valentine’s card need not be entirely your own;