Barbara Lynn-Davis's Blog

2017 TOP 10 ON VENICE

I'm honored CASANOVA'S SECRET WIFE was chosen as one of the year's top ten books set in Venice!

It's always special to be appreciated by the people who love what you love:

https://www.theveniceinsider.com/2017...

Also love what they said about it:

"It is so well written that you will have a hard time to put it aside."

Second Printing!

I was so excited to get the news this week that CASANOVA'S SECRET WIFE is getting a second printing! This was my first true market feedback and I'm very grateful to my readers and supporters. This project has meant and continues to mean so much to me.

Magical Music at The Concord Bookshop

Hi everyone! I had my favorite book event yet this past weekend, when I joined creative forces with Andrew Arceci, director of the early music ensemble at Wellesley College, where I work, and mezzo-soprano Carrie Cheron. Together, they performed two love songs from my book, swoon. It was thrilling to hear the music come alive! It had to be the most exciting moment yet I've had as an author. Here's the YouTube video, and while I'm sure you want to listen to all my brilliance, the heartmelting Italian love song begins at 25:45:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c18Dw...

The Book is Launched!

Okay, so Casanova's Secret Wife has been out about a month, but last night was the official launch at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I shared the evening with my good friend Becky Sue Epstein, author of Champagne: A Global History. Mionetto Prosecco donated a beautiful prosecco produced in Treviso, north of Venice, to make it a splendid night. Becky Sue told us that it turns out Giacomo Casanova spent a year in Treviso in 1749 while escaping from gambling debts. Sounds about right, sigh. But I still adore him.

Rufus!

As my Facebook followers know, I'm obsessed with British actor Rufus Sewell and feel he embodies something of the "Casanova": handsome, intelligent, makes love to a woman with his eyes. Here he is in "Zen," a BBC mystery series based on the books by Michael Dibkin. Rufus often plays historical characters, but here he we get to enjoy him in an Armani suit strutting through the streets of Rome, sigh.

Historical Novel Society Review!

I am sooo proud of this review by the Historical Novel Society!

"A delicious delight ... Caterina and Casanova, surely one of the most passionate love stories of all time."

That's just how I felt writing the book, why I wanted to tell their story, and to have that reflected in other people's reading experiences is so meaningful. I hope many others will be touched by their true love story!

Here's the full review:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...

Feast of Sorrow

Just started this juicy (in all senses of the word) new novel set in ancient Rome ... each time I'm away from it can't wait to sink my teeth back into it!

A sexy question (and a giveaway)

I had my first interview today, on Let Them Read Books!

They asked me my dream question: "If you had been a contemporary of Casanova, do you think he could have seduced you?"

Well, ladies, my answer is ..... (plus a giveaway):

http://letthemreadbooks.blogspot.com/...

A Jewish Woman in Venice

Just finished reading new and entertaining biography A Living Memory: Immortality for Sarra Copia Sulam by Kathleen Ann Gonzalez. I had no idea a Jewish woman presided over a literary salon in 17th-century Venice! Poor woman was also duped by her laundress into believing an "aerial ghost" was stealing her things. Oy.


Here's my full review:

Marvelous work of scholarship and at the same time accessible to any reader interested in Judaism, Venice, and the lives of women. Sarra Copia Sulam came from an enlightened family where her father both educated her well and wanted a happy marriage for her ... she had a supportive husband and thrived as a central figure in Venetian seventeenth-century intellectual life. Fascinating to learn how she balanced her worlds of the Jewish Ghetto and Christian Venice. She endured hardships, including the loss of her children, unstable health, and friends and teachers close to her insulting her publicly and swindling her privately. All in all, the portrait that emerges in this book is one of an intelligent, talented, trusting person whose cultural legacy deserves to be remembered.

Letters from the Lovers!

BookPage published these "eighteenth-century documents" today, a reimagining of love letters exchanged between Giacomo Casanova and Caterina Capreta .... some are in my book, some are extras!

https://bookpage.com/the-book-case/21...