Alyssa Richards's Blog, page 13
June 14, 2015
BBs Book Reviews FaceBook Takeover
Join me here on Monday, June 15th at 7pm EST as I take over BBs Book Reviews FB page for an hour of behind the scenes fun and giveaways! Hope you can join us!
https://www.facebook.com/events/824475644274069/
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June 9, 2015
Dorian Gray from Penny Dreadful
Dorian Gray is one of my favorite characters from Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.
Actually, I have several favorite characters from this show. It’s impossible to choose just one from such an extraordinarily talented cast!
Dorian Gray is a character that hails from Oscar Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was originally published in a more abbreviated version in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890 and was considered offensive and indecent by British reviewers of the time. Mr. Wilde extended the story from 13 to 20 chapters and it was published by the editorial house Ward, Lock and Company a year later.
If you’ve read the book you probably remember that an artist has painted the portrait of the young and handsome Dorian Gray. Dorian soon decides that beauty is the only worthwhile aspect of life and he wishes to stay young and attractive forever. He pursues a hedonistic lifestyle and ultimately falls in love with a talented actress. He proposes, and all bodes well until Dorian learns that his love has given up acting, which he considered to be inseparable from her beauty.
He breaks the engagement and then notices that the portrait has taken on a cruel appearance. His wish has been granted. He retains his beauty, while his portrait absorbs the price of his narcissistic choices.
In the Penny Dreadful series, we haven’t yet seen Dorian’s portrait but we know it exists. Too, he currently has a love interest and he is celebrating her publicly. In the book, the actress kills herself after Dorian forsakes her. Could the same theme be far behind in the series? Angelique does seem quite fragile and emotionally dependent upon Dorian’s love and acceptance.
“To be different, to be powerful. Is that not a divine gift?”
Dorian Gray to Vanessa Ives
I love the entire premise of the show, how each character has a darker side they have yet to accept. Episode by episode we follow their path to see if their hidden identities will empower or destroy them.
I blend the same theme throughout The Fine Art of Deception series, as I find the idea of secrets and secret identities are so fascinating. Everyone dons a mask when they step into the public eye. People are rarely, truly themselves, even when they boast that they are. I wanted to explore what it would be like for someone who sees what others wish to keep secreted away. How do they react toward someone who shows up with such uninvited intimacy? What happens when someone like this is confronted by a love that requires them to be authentic and vulnerable? Could there be a place in in this person’s life where they find happiness and love?
Book 1 in The Fine Art of Deception series, Undoing Time is available now. Book 2, Somewhere in Time is due out at the end of the summer!!!
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June 8, 2015
Review – The Fine Art of Deception
Thank you to Splashes Into Books for their Review of The Fine Art of Deception!
The Fine Art of Deception: Undoing Time by Alyssa Richards
Title: The Fine Art of Deception: Undoing Time
Author: Alyssa Richards
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Published: January 18th, 2015
Rating: 5/5
Adeline Montgomery comes from a family of psychics. They each have their own talents and hers is that when she touches an object she sees events and feelings relating to its owner, sometimes their deepest secrets. This is a great way of finding out if art work is genuine or fake but sometimes others just find it too frightening to cope with – like her ex, Jeremy, who is now engaged to the person who used to be her best friend. Even though they split seven years ago it has had a severe effect on her willingness to share her gift or to trust men. She can also see and communicate with “ghosts” and touching someone can reveal their secrets whether she wants to know them or not. Shutting out all these communications is difficult for her at times. Now she’s going to try for a job as a researcher in the Art appraisal company started by Otto Albrecht and her grandfather. It is now years since her father and grandfather mysteriously and dramatically disappeared whilst in Paris for the company – even with her psychic talents she hasn’t been able to find them. Her sister warns her to stay away from the company but she needs the job and maybe she can find out what happened to their father and grandfather!
Gallery owner Blake Greenwood admits people in the art world aren’t always what they seem. He’s tall, dark and dangerously attractive as far as Adeline is concerned, their attraction is mutual and somewhat irresistible. Her gifts, however, warn her to keep away from him – should she listen to her head or her heart? She needs to decide quickly because in the fraudulent art world, mafia involvement and people who aren’t what they seem all threaten Adeline, even when she doesn’t realise her danger.
This is well written with complex characters who reveal more of themselves as the story progresses. It is a great mystery with paranormal elements that make it enthrallingly different and captivating. With soul mates, vengeful spirits, a range of psychic abilities together with a possible romance this book has it all. Any fans of mysteries or paranormal romance are likely to be as enamoured with this book as I am. It does end but there are so many loose ends that I really hope there will be a sequel!
Thanks to the author, publishers and NetGalley, too,
for letting me read an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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May 22, 2015
Free Romantic Suspense Friday
Welcome to Free Romantic Suspense Friday! Hope you enjoy!
I smoothed a few long strands behind my ears and stared into the large, round mirror. As usual, a related image of my father stared back at me. My sisters favored our mother with their thicker hair and warm, ginger skin tones, but there was no mistaking that I was my father’s child.
My parents named me Adeline, but Daddy nicknamed me Addie, and it stuck. I switched to Adeline when I moved to New York because it sounded more professional. My fingers traced the antique silver frame, which sat on the wooden countertop of the dressing table. It encircled one of my favorite childhood memories of my father. He held the tow-headed, one-year-old me in his arms, my pink cotton dress sufficiently delicate for his princess. His proud smile was bright enough to light up the room, and I beamed as I placed a tiny hand on either side of his face.
I held my hand over the photo and hesitated, not wanting to feel what would inevitably come after it was over. But reliving what used to be was all I had now. So I shut my eyes. Then pressed my fingertips onto the cool photograph. The smell of his cologne reached me first, and then the sound of his laugh thundered in my ears, took over my heart, and made me feel invincible. His love for me and the rest his family made each of us feel like superheroes.
“Addie, my angel,” his voice echoed from beyond. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.” I leaned in with the limitless love that all baby girls feel for their daddies and hugged his neck. As my palms flattened against the gold chain normally hidden by his shirts, his worst fear was revealed to me: he would be without us one day. I squeezed him a little tighter.
The vision began to fade and emptiness crept in with the silence. At least the sound of his voice held strong this time. I missed hearing him call me Addie.
As the past went back to its place in my history, and the present became clearer, I sighed and stared at the two jewelry boxes that sat on my vanity.
Copyright 2015 Alyssa Richards
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If you’d like more Free Romantic Suspense, sign up here to receive the first nine chapters of The Fine Art of Deception, Book 1 — free!
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May 15, 2015
The Tragic Love of Francesca da Rimini and The Kiss
The Tragic Love of Francesca da Rimini
Francesca fell in love with her husband Giovanni ‘s younger brother, Paolo, with whom she carried on an affair. That is until Giovanni ultimately surprised them in Francesca’s bedroom and killed them both.
In this stunning painting by Ary Scheffer, Dante and Virgil meet Francesca and her lover Paolo in the second circle of hell, which is reserved for the lustful. Here, the couple is trapped in an eternal whirlwind, doomed to be forever swept through the air because they allowed themselves to be swept away by their passions.
Dante’s ‘Inferno’, canto V, 1855 by Ary Scheffer (1795-1858)
The sculpture, The Kiss, was originally titled Francesca da Rimini, as it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalized in Dante’s Inferno (Circle 2, Canto 5) who falls in love with her husband Giovanni Malatesta’s younger brother, Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca’s husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand. The lovers’ lips do not actually touch in the sculpture, suggesting that they were interrupted and met their demise without their lips ever having touched.
When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser (The Kiss).
I saw The Kiss when I was in Paris this past summer — it is EXQUISITE!!! It’s located in Musee’ Rodin – a beautiful museum with extraordinary gardens. The Kiss is located on the main floor in a brightly lit room and commands the attention of the visitors. If you should happen to visit at a time when the crowd is too heavy, step into the next room. There you’ll find the much smaller model that Rodin made before he sculpted the full-sized version.
The gardens are also filled with Rodin’s sculptures. The Thinker is prominently placed as are The Gates of Hell. I took several pictures of The Kiss, the gardens and a few of Rodin’s other sculptures and posted them here: https://instagram.com/alyssaauthor/
Hope you enjoy!
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May 7, 2015
1922 Chinese Ghost Bride at her Ghost Wedding
Look at this incredible picture of a Chinese Ghost Bride circa 1922. Both teens, she died from a high fever before the wedding. The photo was taken in the early evening, when she was already dead for 6 days. They had to prop her body up with a wooden plank, so as to hold her up. Notice that her feet aren’t touching the ground fully.
Also, notice the 2 rows of Chinese characters. One row was carved outwards, which was said to be meant for the dead. The couple went through the traditional wedding rites for the dead to cement a bond of friendship between two families and to provide a deceased daughter with a patrilineage.
Why? Because the families believed “that should the spirit of the deceased, who, upon finding itself without a spouse in the other world” would cause misfortune for its natal family, as well as the family of its betrothed.
The woman in this 1922 Ghost Wedding is supposedly a nǚ guǐ (女鬼), or a ghost woman. A woman who dies unmarried has no family and can’t become an ancestor, so she returns and haunts. There’s a simple solution to the nǚ guǐ hauntings, though: find a man and pay him to marry her. These “profound weddings” (冥婚) are an important function of the Dàoshi, and a kinder form of exorcism.
There have also been ghost weddings where both parties were dead before the ceremony.
The Chinese culture isn’t the only one to embrace ghost brides and perform ghost weddings. There is a long history of ghost brides and ghost weddings in Sudan and India, and even France.
Many fiction-based novels and TV shows have highlighted the custom of ghost brides as well:
In Yangsze Choo’s novel The Ghost Bride (New York: William Morrow, 2013), set in 19th century colonial Malaya, a young Chinese woman receives a proposal from a wealthy family to marry their dead son.
In Lisa See‘s novel Peony in Love (New York: Random House, 2007), set in 17th century China, the protagonist, Peony, dies at 16 and is later the bride in a ghost marriage to a poet she fell in love with during life.
In Season 2, episode 16 of the television series Bones, “The Boneless Bride in the River,” a woman is murdered and has her bones sold for a ghost marriage ritual.
In episode 22 of the final season of the television series Without a Trace, titled “Devotion,” a young woman was kidnapped and set to be poisoned and ghost married by the traditional Chinese parents of her late ex-fiancé.[11]
In Season 5, episode 13 of the television series Numb3rs, “Trouble in Chinatown,” Chinese women are being murdered and then their bodies are buried atop the coffins of unmarried Chinese males. The “ghost brides” are picked out by the grieving parents. Shortly before the murder, a brief traditional wedding ceremony is held so that the dead sons have company in their afterlife. While the character performing the murders portrays this as long-standing Chinese tradition, the writers used the epilogue to point out that the authentic tradition did not involve murder and that the criminals had perverted the practice to their own ends.
An episode of Urban Legends portrayed this practice, with a twist. A man was forced to undergo this with his fiancée, who had recently killed herself.
In season 2 of The Blacklist, ghost marriages is briefly explored when a blacklister smuggles deceased female bodies and prepare them for afterlife with a marriage ceremony for the sons of grieving clients.
(Source of novels and tv shows cited, wikipedia)
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May 1, 2015
Mother’s Day Gifts – You’ve Found Them!
Looking for Mother’s Day Gifts? Look no further.
Send her The Fine Art of Deception – a book you know she’ll love!
What Readers Say:
“Magnificent! This book hooks the reader and pulls you into a deep mystery.”
“I loved all the characters in it but really connected with the main character in it, Addie. The ability to touch any item and see its past is amazing.”
“If you love a good mystery, are interested in the paranormal, enjoy a little romance, then this book is for you!”
“The characters were fascinating and well-developed, the story had a wonderful pace.”
“Fabulous start for this new author! This was one of those books I couldn’t put down once I started reading, and when interrupted, couldn’t wait to get back to find out what happens with Addie, and particularly with her relationship with Blake.”
Available on Amazon.com
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April 28, 2015
Tuscan Princesses are Descendants of Mona Lisa
Meet two descendan
ts of Lisa Gherardini, the model for the Mona Lisa. In 2007, an Italian genealogy expert revealed that the Strozzi family directly descends from Gherardini. In this photo are Tuscan princesses Natalia, left, and Irina Strozzi, I think I see a resemblance. Do you?
Last year I traveled to Paris and spent a full day in the Louvre. If you’ve been recently, you know that the Mona Lisa has a relatively new room that was constructed for her. Her smallish painting sits in the middle of the room on a free standing wall. The walls on the side of the room are filled with other paintings but I don’t think anyone ever pays attention to those!
If you’re someone who wants to see the Mona Lisa, I highly recommend going on to The Louvre’s website. You’ll get a better look at the Mona Lisa there than you ever could in person. The Louvre has a wonderful “focus” option where you can look at the famous painting as if you were within a few inches of the canvas! http://focus.louvre.fr/en
It’s better than actually being there. No crowds to fight. No tourists pushing and shoving and vying for a selfie with Mona Lisa. Yes, a selfie with Mona. I actually saw that. #headslap
The crowds that gather to see the Mona Lisa are usually intense, and, when I was there, the Louvre guards weren’t very motivated to move people along. So, it can be a challenge to get a good look at her. Plus the painting is small. Only 77 x 53 cm. So, check her out on the website. Lots of fun!
Leonardo was 55 when he finished painting her. It took him 4 years. When he did finish the painting, he carried it around with him for the last 12 years of his life. Obsessively. Some say he added little touches here and there to the painting during that time. You know, Lisa Gheradini was pregnant when she sat for the portrait, maybe that’s the reason for her mysterious smile.
She sits behind 3 inches of bulletproof glass and receives a minimum of 8 million visitors a year! Can’t wait to see her again.
Perhaps Addie and Blake will make a visit to see her as well…
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April 17, 2015
Free Paranormal Romance Book Excerpt
It’s Friday – Free Paranormal Romance Book Day! Enjoy this excerpt from Book 2!!
Though she didn’t feel much like eating, she knew French cheese could heal many ills so she managed to eat several small wedges. Wine had healing powers as well, but mostly when the first glass was followed by a second. So she drank both.
Her father and grandfather had once been the steady heartbeats of her life. They were the cadence that each of the women in her family stepped to. Not because these men were overbearing, but because their pure love for their families swept each heart into full devotion to them and made their wives and children adore them like heroes.
Everyone was a better version of themselves when Campbell and John Montgomery were around. They had a way of seeing the best in people and emphasizing it in such a way that no one could believe anything else about themselves. When they disappeared, Grandmother Grace put it best. She said that each family member had lost their respective North star.
For Addie, as well as the other women in her family, their lingering grief was a mislaid sense of longing. Because each woman in her family was psychic. Some could see ghosts. Others could predict the future or know what you were feeling or pull the history from an object. But everyone had mediumship abilities to varying degrees of proficiency. And no one had heard from either Campbell or John since they’d died. Or left. Or whatever it was they had done.
The Montgomery women held out hope for years that they would return. But that hope dwindled when no one could sense their presence. Anywhere. Neither here. Nor on the Other Side. They were simply gone.
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