CLP Blog Tours Interview and Excerpt: Limoncello Yellow by Traci Andrighetti
**Interview**
When did you know writing was for you?
This is going to sound really crazy, but I discovered that I liked to write during my PhD program. The telling sign was that I found myself starting papers early so that I could polish them to perfection, but it wasn’t because I was trying to get a better grade. LOL!
How would you describe your books?
Well, my author branding statement is “Cocktails, color, and crime. Italian style.” But essentially, I see my books in terms of color, as in personality. Everything from the title to the characters, setting and crime are colorful. And I work in a fresh take on Italianness with some Italian and Sicilian language mixed in.
Why was Limoncello Yellow a book you wanted to write?
There were so many reasons! But it all started with a book I read in Italian by Gabriella Genisi. She created this spunky, sexy police inspector named Lolita Lobosco, and all the novels in the series have a colorful fruit-themed title with the fruit playing some part in the mystery. As I was reading her first book, I became really jealous of her (which is totally weird for me). Then I interviewed her for my Italian book blog, italicissima, and found out we were born in the same month and year. As soon as I heard that, I had one of those “if-she-can-do-it-so-can-I” moments. And I started creating Limoncello Yellow.
What is the hardest part of the writing process for you?
Honestly, it’s finding the time to write. And then when I do, it’s focusing. I know everyone can relate when I say that the demands on our lives these days are overwhelming, particularly when you work full time.
What are your favorite genres to read?
Light women’s fiction, a.k.a. chick lit, cozy mystery and mystery. I really like to laugh, so I’m always looking for the humorous ones.
What do you want readers to take away from your story?
I want them to relax, laugh and fall in love with New Orleans like I have. And maybe learn some Italian.
How important do you think social media is for authors these days?
Unfortunately, it’s only becoming more important. I recently read that 3,500 books are published every day in the United States. So, authors have to use every means at their disposal to get the word out about their books.
What would be your advice to aspiring writers?
Take a class on writing the specific genre you’re interested in writing. When I decided to write Limoncello Yellow, I enrolled in an online chick lit class to make sure that I understood the big pieces that readers and publishers of the genre would expect to see. And obviously, it worked!
**Excerpt**
I parked in front of my new home. Before I could get out of the car, Veronica was already walking out her front door, smiling and waving with Hercules in tow in a turquoise fuzzy sweater that matched hers perfectly. Despite her Sicilian father, Veronica looked Swedish like her ex-ballerina mother, with long blonde hair, cornflower blue eyes, and pale skin. 
“Franki!” Veronica yelled.
I bent over—at the waist—to hug her. I’d forgotten how tiny she was, and I wondered for at least the hundredth time how her internal organs could function in such a small frame.
She looked up at me and smiled. “How does it feel to be in New Orleans?”
I glanced over at the cemetery and then back at her. “At the moment, it feels fairly morbid.”
“Oh, come on! You don’t still have that weird cemetery issue, do you?”
“Yes, Veronica. And I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that there’s one right across the street! You know, lots of people would find it disturbing to go to sleep at night with a cemetery basically in their front yard, especially a New Orleans cemetery.”
Veronica shook her head in mock disgust as she grabbed a box from my back seat.
“Thank God there’s a bar right next to it,” I continued. “In case I need to drink myself to death from despair.”
She smiled. “Well, if you do drink yourself to death, I wouldn’t have to carry you very far for your burial.”
I quickly made the customary scongiuri gesture that my nonna had taught me to do to ward off the threat of death, which Veronica had just so carelessly cast upon me. It looks like the University of Texas’s hook ‘em horns sign with the index and pinky fingers pointed up like horns, only you point the horns downward.
Veronica rolled her eyes. “Do you still do that silly scongiuri thing too? God, Franki, you make me so glad my nonna stayed in Sicily. You’re so superstitious!”
“I do it just in case,” I snapped. “I mean, you never know…”
Veronica walked up to my new front door, which was right next to hers, and pulled a key from the front right pocket of her AG jeans. “Glenda—our landlady—told me to let you in. She’ll come downstairs to meet you in a few minutes.”
With the box balanced on her left hip, Veronica unlocked my front door with her right hand. She gave the door a shove with her shoulder, and it swung open. She turned to me and bowed. “Welcome to your humble abode.”
I excitedly entered the apartment with Napoleon at my heels. As I surveyed the living room, a number of adjectives came to mind, but humble was not one of them. The room could only be described as the home decor equivalent of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. The walls were covered in fuzzy, blood-red wallpaper with shiny gold fleurs-de-lis, and hanging from the ceiling was a baroque red-and-black crystal chandelier. The couch was a rococo chaise lounge in velvet zebra print, and next to it was a lilac velour armchair with gold fringe that matched the drapery to perfection. On the opposite wall there was a mahogany wood fireplace with a hearth covered in white candles of various sizes and shapes. In front of the fireplace, a bearskin rug replete with a bear head covered the hardwood floors. The only thing that was missing was the red fluorescent light in the living room window announcing my availability for prospective clients.
I realized that my mouth was hanging open. “Wow. So…this Glenda…is she a prostitute?” I joked.
“Former stripper, actually,” Veronica replied. “And she’s really touchy about the difference, so don’t use the word prostitute in front of her.”
I gaped at my best friend. “You’re serious?”
Veronica just blinked innocently, as if renting me an apartment from a former stripper across from a cemetery were perfectly normal. “You know, I was reading that the brothel look is really in right now. I believe it’s called ‘bordello chic.’” She began to pace back and forth as she tried to reconcile her unusually conflicted sense of fashion. “But now that I think about it, Lenny Kravitz redecorated his house here in New Orleans, and designers call his style ‘bordello modern.’”
“Something tells me that Lenny didn’t decorate this place. And I wouldn’t exactly call this ‘bordello modern.’ It’s more like ‘bordello seventies.’”
“Well, at least you won’t have to add any touches of color,” Veronica said.
Traci’s bio:
Traci Andrighetti is the author of the Franki Amato Mystery series. In her previous life, she was an award-winning literary translator and a Lecturer of Italian at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics. But then she got wise and ditched that academic stuff for a life of crime—writing, that is.
If she’s not hard at work on her next novel, Traci is probably watching her favorite Italian soap opera, eating Tex Mex or sampling fruity cocktails, and maybe all at the same time. She lives in Austin with her husband, young son (who desperately wants to be in one of her books) and three treat-addicted dogs.
Traci’s Links:
Website: http://traciandrighetti.com
Blog: http://traciandrighetti.com/blo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traciandrigh...
Twitter: @TAndrighetti
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Limoncello Yellow Purchase Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Traci-Andrighetti/e/B00GL3SN3G/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/limoncello-yellow?store=allproducts&keyword=limoncello+yellow
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/limoncello-yellow/id790891917?mt=11
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/limoncello-yellow
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/401318
