Author Interview & Book Giveaway: DM Denton on TO A STRANGE SOMEWHERE FLED

This week, we're pleased to again welcome author DM Denton with her latest release, TO A STRANGE SOMEWHERE FLED, the sequel to A House Near Luccoli. One lucky visitor will get a free copy of To A Strange Somewhere Fled. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb. 

After the sudden end to her collaboration with composer Alessandro Stradella, Donatella moves from Genoa to join her parents in a small village in Oxfordshire, England. The gift of a sonnet, 'stolen' music, inexpressible secrets, and an irrepressible spirit have stowed away on her journey. Haunted by whispers and visions, angels and demons, will she rise out of grief and aimlessness? Her father's friendship with the residents of Wroxton Abbey, who are important figures in the court of Charles II, offers new possibilities, especially as music and its masters ~ including the 'divine' Henry Purcell ~ have not finished with her yet.

Praise for To A Strange Somewhere Fled

While Donatella and her story, full as it is of such a legion of colorful characters, are vastly entertaining in their own right, often Denton’s descriptions of musical performances manage to swoop in and lift the reader up to even greater heights. Her passionate research and personal love of the art both shine through in the remarkable imagery her prose evokes, enrapturing her audience and taking them just a bit deeper into the intricacies of the 17th century setting. Irrevocable in its magic and intrepid in its storytelling, To a Strange Somewhere Fled is a fascinating and delectably original work that readers won’t soon forget.
~Casee Marie Clow, Literary Inklings

DM Denton writes with a lyrical style, which swells, fades, and swells again. Her words pull her readers to the 17^th century like music from that era.
~Steve Lindahl, author of White Horse Regressions & Motherless Soul.

That we can meet (the composer) Henry Purcell within these pages and find him totally believable as a living, breathing human being is a mark of the author’s imaginative powers and literary skill.
~Deborah Bennison, Bennison Books

Denton’s style allows for flourishes, nuances, changes in pace, and variations on themes, as music does. With delicacy and sureness, the author works with her themes of memory, love, and loss.
~ Mary Clark, author of Tally: An Intuitive Life

**Q&A with DM Denton**

How would you describe your writing style?

Reviewers have characterized my writing style as lyrical, descriptive, rule-breaking, meticulous, complex, yet also understated. My first two novels are driven by 17^th century music and its makers, so the lyricism in them is especially pronounced. Certainly there is poetry in my prose. I’m an instinctual writer who works without an outline, sometimes has an idea of an ending and sometimes does not, is anti-formula, and tends to be creative with structure and genre. There is an observational and analytical side to me and my writing, so I’m not just about making pretty with words. I enjoy extensive research and the challenge of combining historical characters and events with fictional ones in—hopefully—a seamless weaving together. I liken my scene-orientated approach to a filmmaker using a zoom lens to get up close and personal. A reviewer recently wrote that I “executed freedom of narrative: some scenes that would traditionally be laid out in show-stopping dramatics may happen quietly, maybe even outside of the narrative completely.” Another said my writing was for readers who enjoy detours and the views along the way, who know reading like life it is as much about the journey as the destination.

Who designed the covers of your books?

I did the artwork and design for both of my novels, fortunate to have a publisher who allows me to be so involved in their presentation. I’ve also done illustrations for two Kindle Shorts I’ve had published and the cover of a friend’s poetry anthology. I’m always open to taking artwork commissions from other authors.

Is there an underrepresented group or idea that is featured in your books?

Perhaps, because of my own experience, I find myself writing about women who are unmarried and childless and need to chart a more unconventional course through life. Once referred to as spinsters—although the meaning of spinster gradually evolved from its reference to a respectable occupation for unmarried women to the perception of them as lonely, left behind, pointless, and even a threat to society—they live in the shadow of others and often in servitude to them. Of course, that is not the case in the 21^st century – or is it? Well, perhaps, today there is the flip side: the assumption that if not to be pitied, a woman who is unattached and, especially, without children, is seen as selfish or ambitious or just afraid to risk for love (not so modern after all, considering the first Queen Elizabeth faced such opinions in the 16^th century). My female protagonists aren’t necessarily averse to letting others into their thoughts, dreams, hearts, and even physical experience. It’s just that their situation, if they let it, will structure their lives in terms of what they are not rather than all they are and can be. I prefer to view them as singularly resilient and explore how they need not be limited by their unmarried, even unmarriageable, status, but can still be nourishing and nourished through their desires, talents, and purpose.

How do you approach developing the world of a historical novel fully in your mind?

It’s not unlike meeting a new lover, feeling the chance of the introduction, instinctively knowing this is someone you want to know better, even intimately; perhaps wondering if it’s a wise or mutual attraction, but in the end deciding—believing—the affair is meant to be. It’s as fortuitous, daunting and magical to encounter the possible subject of a next novel (or even a shorter story)—its characters, time period and setting—realizing how much you don’t know and need to, can’t visualize and will have to, how far you have to go and how long it will take; and then fearlessly embark on the adventure: discovering books, letters, websites, images, music, every significant and seemingly insignificant thing, and so much in the unknown, too. Well, the unknown is where the imagination comes in; and as the imagination comes in, so does the magic of suddenly being present in the past, of understanding a character implicitly, of finding myself able to describe a place because I’m lost in it, and knowing how the clothes feel because I’m wearing them and the food tastes because I’m eating it, how to read by the glow of a candle because I’m writing by the light of one—at least, I’ve pulled down the shades or put the lamp on low because I write better that way. Slowly and suddenly it’s happened: I’ve gone from being a stranger in an alluring place to belonging to its possibilities as if I was born there.

Did your research for both or either of your novels yield any surprises in terms of historical events or illuminate a character in a particular way?

The biggest surprise I’ve experienced so far was in discovering the multi-dimensions of the 17^th – 18th century lawyer and biographer Roger North—a historical character I decided to include in my second novel, To A Strange Somewhere Fled. Unlike Alessandro Stradella in A House Near Luccoli, who was a celebrity in his time and naturally offered the drama of his legendary life and death, Roger North seemed, to quote a character in the novel, “clever but dull”, and probably not someone who would move plot or transform anyone’s life. Certainly, I couldn’t have imagined a male protagonist for A House Near Luccoli’s sequel more in contrast to the temperament and lifestyle of Stradella. But in contrast there often is similarity, subtle as it may be. I like to look for what isn’t obvious and might even seem contradictory: the ordinary in the extraordinary, the vulnerability behind swagger, the influence of even the most unobtrusive of people like Roger North with his reserved individualism and wide range of “practical diversions”—including writing, philosophy, architecture, mathematics, horticulture, sailing, and music. He was a quieter, plainer, more cautious, modest, and moralistic figure than Stradella, but no less remarkable, creative, or complex, which made him as satisfying to write about.

Why did you decide to write a sequel to A House Near Luccoli, why did you set it in England, and does To A Strange Somewhere Fled end the ‘series’?

Although a major character is lost, A House Near Luccoli’s ending is also about the continuing journey of its female protagonist Donatella, her relationship with the 17^th composer Alessandro Stradella bound to affect her for a long time. When I began to consider a destination for her beyond Genoa, it seemed natural that her flight from grief would take her to the quaint but stately village of Wroxton in Oxfordshire, where her parents were living and I had myself for sixteen years. What came out of my memory and I feared might be limited by my experience and prejudice, slowly emerged from a more historically informed and imaginative perspective. I don’t plan on any more novels following Donatella’s story, but that isn’t saying she may never turn up again in someone else’s.

What writing projects are you presently working on?

I’ve begun the first novelette of three that will comprise a book featuring obscure women writers, including the often overlooked Brontë sister Anne, the poetess and sister of Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, and the late Victorian novelist Mary Webb. While working on a larger project, I try to write shorter pieces - essays, poetry, stories – for my blog or publication, and am about to embark on an illustrated book with stories about the cats I’ve known.

To A Strange Somewhere Fled Buying Links:

Amazon (Paperback and Kindle format):
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Somewhere-Fled-DM-Denton/dp/0990715868/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433448040&sr=1-1&keywords=to+a+strange+somewhere+fled

Barnesandnoble (Paperback and NOOK Book format):
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-a-strange-somewhere-fled-dm-denton/1121461207?ean=9780990715863

Learn more about author DM Denton

Writer and artist, DM Denton, a native of Western New York, is inspired by music, art, nature, and the contradictions of the human and creative spirit. Her educational journey took her to a dream-fulfilling semester at Wroxton College, Oxfordshire, England, and she remained in the UK for sixteen years surrounded by the quaint villages, beautiful hills, woods and fields of the Oxfordshire countryside. She returned to the US in 1990, to a rural area of Western New York State where she still resides in a cozy log cabin with her mother and a multitude of cats. Her day jobs have been in retail, manufacturing, media and career consulting, and as a volunteer coordinator for Western New York Public Broadcasting. She is currently secretary for the Zoning and Codes administration in the town where she lives. Her historical fiction A House Near Luccoli, which imagines an intimacy with the 17^th charismatic composer Alessandro Stradella, and its sequel To A Strange Somewhere Fled, were published by All Things That Matter Press, as were her Kindle short stories, The Snow White Gift and The Library Next Door. She also shares her writing and illustrations on her blog.

DM Denton on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dmdentonauthorartist?fref=ts

To A Strange Somewhere Fled on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toastrangesomewherefled?fref=ts

A House Near Luccoli on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahousenearluccoli?fref=ts

Blog: https://bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com/

Website: http://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6521872.D_M_Denton

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bardessdmdenton

Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/DM-Denton/e/B0093NWE4U/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

Excerpt Thursday: TO A STRANGE SOMEWHERE FLED by D.M. Denton

This week, we're pleased to again welcome author DM Denton with her latest release, TO A STRANGE SOMEWHERE FLED, the sequel to A House Near Luccoli. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. One lucky visitor will get a free copy of To A Strange Somewhere Fled. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb. 

After the sudden end to her collaboration with composer Alessandro Stradella, Donatella moves from Genoa to join her parents in a small village in Oxfordshire, England. The gift of a sonnet, 'stolen' music, inexpressible secrets, and an irrepressible spirit have stowed away on her journey. Haunted by whispers and visions, angels and demons, will she rise out of grief and aimlessness? Her father's friendship with the residents of Wroxton Abbey, who are important figures in the court of Charles II, offers new possibilities, especially as music and its masters ~ including the 'divine' Henry Purcell ~ have not finished with her yet.

Praise for To A Strange Somewhere Fled

While Donatella and her story, full as it is of such a legion of colorful characters, are vastly entertaining in their own right, often Denton’s descriptions of musical performances manage to swoop in and lift the reader up to even greater heights. Her passionate research and personal love of the art both shine through in the remarkable imagery her prose evokes, enrapturing her audience and taking them just a bit deeper into the intricacies of the 17th century setting. Irrevocable in its magic and intrepid in its storytelling, To a Strange Somewhere Fled is a fascinating and delectably original work that readers won’t soon forget.
~Casee Marie Clow, Literary Inklings

DM Denton writes with a lyrical style, which swells, fades, and swells again. Her words pull her readers to the 17^th century like music from that era.
~Steve Lindahl, author of White Horse Regressions & Motherless Soul.

That we can meet (the composer) Henry Purcell within these pages and find him totally believable as a living, breathing human being is a mark of the author’s imaginative powers and literary skill.
~Deborah Bennison, Bennison Books

Denton’s style allows for flourishes, nuances, changes in pace, and variations on themes, as music does. With delicacy and sureness, the author works with her themes of memory, love, and loss.
~ Mary Clark, author of Tally: An Intuitive Life

**An Excerpt from A Strange Somewhere Fled**

Donatella couldn’t make out the performers in the candlelit gallery, but recognized their muse as if it was her own. A number of Purcell sonatas—announced as so new they were yet unpublished—came to life on harpsichord, violins, and bass viols. They connected her to pleasure and pain in the same measure, speaking without words, remembering without thoughts and realizing emotions that didn’t need explanation. The best music came out of silence like love out of the impossible, made more beautiful because of loss and loneliness that never wanted company again. Only Sir Francis seemed to be listening as she was, standing at some distance but turning and nodding as though he sensed her empathy.    

            “Oh, Donata. Not here, not now.”   

            Mama dabbed Donatella’s eyes with one of the perfumed gloves she preferred to carry than wear, glancing around for witnesses.    

            “And look like you’re going to stay.” She slid the cape off her daughter’s shoulders, handing it to a page, who didn’t seem to know what to do with it.    

            The music changed pace and, as didn’t surprise Donatella, achieved more attention than the sonatas had, its composition for the soul never as popular as for the feet.    

            “I’ll sit here.” A bench of studded red leather between mirroring armor and a smoking fireplace offered to keep Donatella out of the way of the assembling dance formation.    

            “As if at a funeral,” her mother noticed.    

            The Captain slumped beside his daughter. Somehow he knew his wife was about to ask Sir Francis to be her partner, and gestured his relief and consent to him.     

            There was tapping, counting out loud and, yet an abrupt start to a galliard that had a few of the dancers and even musicians trying to catch up. What would be the consequence, beyond that evening, for those couples discovering how well or ill matched they were kicking right-left-right-left into an uncertain cadence of jumping and posturing? The repetition was broken with a few lifts and spins by some of the more athletic and audacious pairs, and the Captain pointing out more than one stumble and foot or dress stepped on, another twirl that didn’t quite happen as arms found a graceless way out of a tangle, and all those red faces caused by embarrassment and exertion.    

            Mama couldn’t be faulted. She was voluptuous and engaging, giving herself to the dance as she did to every meal and expression, smiling at Sir Francis and anyone else as though irrelevant to her enjoyment. Perhaps the Captain observed his wife’s self-sufficiency with relief, but to Donatella it seemed he was missing the woman who couldn’t imagine belonging anywhere but in his sight and approval.    

            Frivolity soon gave way to poignancy, especially to those who listened for it. A galliard was often paired with a pavane, but usually as an overture, not conclusion. The dancers were sent into a column of slow curtseys and bows, their hesitant steps retreating and advancing as they lifted on the balls of their feet and swayed side to side. A few, like her mother and Sir Francis, justified it as the peacock dance, holding an arrogant posture and using the certainty of steps, fullness of skirts, and floating of sleeves to court dignity, hands barely touching arms or backs while nods agreed on discretion. Still, a wink over her shoulder as she and Sir Francis passed near Donatella proved Mama wouldn’t allow choreography to suspend spontaneity altogether.     

            Donatella wondered about the Captain’s reaction. A little boy sat in his place.    

            “I’m glad my father pretends to enjoy himself.” He knew how to speak to her, saw Donatella’s mother approaching and ran off.    

            Mama’s cheeks were burning. She sat expansively, sweating, and exhaled noisily. Her head swayed, eyes tried not to close and upper torso fell sideways into Donatella’s lap.   

            “Mama, Mama—”   

            “Mistress Hanley—”   

            “Julianna—”   

            Despite the perspiration on her mother’s face, she seemed frozen in Donatella’s arms before she was passed to the Captain’s, his strength as miraculous as her mother’s recovery while he carried her where Sir Francis led. Their stuttering host cautioned the step up onto the dais where a copper-banded table displayed more pottery and silver than food, which might have caused Mama to faint again if she had noticed. Instead, she was caught up in the attention of men, hanging onto the neck of one and following the urgency of another who pushed open an enormous door into a passageway also carved out of dark and heavy times.    

            “This way.” Sir Francis turned left but Donatella glanced right and up at his young son sitting on the step of a staircase, its banister only partially constructed.    

            Quickly passing through what might have been a dining room, they entered a small parlor, Sir Francis pulling the fringed curtains closed and putting down the candle he carried before showing the Captain where he could do the same with his now wide-eyed wife. Donatella caught her mother’s feet to slip off her shoes in time to help lower her onto a caned and cushioned daybed.    

            Sir Francis turned away, using the servant who had come into the room to disguise the reason he did.    

            The housemaid listened to her master’s request, curtseyed, and was gone. He faced them to explain, “I thought something to drink and eat might help.”    

            “It usually does.” The Captain’s sarcasm didn’t lighten Sir Francis’ thoughts.    

            “What’s that, Mama?” Donatella was almost hugging her mother to hear her. “No. Papa jokes.”    

            “Julianna,” the Captain said as he went down to one knee, stroking his wife’s arm, “you act without sense.”    

            Sir Francis was obviously struggling with the scene, “My dearest lady would lie there before the severity of her illness confined her to bed.”    

            The Captain also realized the strain his friend was under. “Please, sir. See to your party.”    

            “Yes, yes. But stay, all of you, as long as you need. We could send for a doctor.”    

            “No,” Mama tried to sit up. “I just need to eat.”

To A Strange Somewhere Fled Buying Links:

Amazon (Paperback and Kindle format):
http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Somewhere-Fled-DM-Denton/dp/0990715868/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433448040&sr=1-1&keywords=to+a+strange+somewhere+fled

Barnesandnoble (Paperback and NOOK Book format):
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-a-strange-somewhere-fled-dm-denton/1121461207?ean=9780990715863

Learn more about author DM Denton

Writer and artist, DM Denton, a native of Western New York, is inspired by music, art, nature, and the contradictions of the human and creative spirit. Her educational journey took her to a dream-fulfilling semester at Wroxton College, Oxfordshire, England, and she remained in the UK for sixteen years surrounded by the quaint villages, beautiful hills, woods and fields of the Oxfordshire countryside. She returned to the US in 1990, to a rural area of Western New York State where she still resides in a cozy log cabin with her mother and a multitude of cats. Her day jobs have been in retail, manufacturing, media and career consulting, and as a volunteer coordinator for Western New York Public Broadcasting. She is currently secretary for the Zoning and Codes administration in the town where she lives. Her historical fiction A House Near Luccoli, which imagines an intimacy with the 17^th charismatic composer Alessandro Stradella, and its sequel To A Strange Somewhere Fled, were published by All Things That Matter Press, as were her Kindle short stories, The Snow White Gift and The Library Next Door. She also shares her writing and illustrations on her blog.

DM Denton on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dmdentonauthorartist?fref=ts

To A Strange Somewhere Fled on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toastrangesomewherefled?fref=ts

A House Near Luccoli on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahousenearluccoli?fref=ts

Blog: https://bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com/

Website: http://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6521872.D_M_Denton

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bardessdmdenton

Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/DM-Denton/e/B0093NWE4U/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

Guest Blog: DM Denton

This week, we're welcoming author DM Denton, whose latest title is A House Near Luccoli. The author will offer a free copy of the book to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb: 

Over three years since the charismatic composer, violinist and singer Alessandro Stradella (1639 – 1682) sought refuge in the palaces and twisted alleys of Genoa, royally welcomed despite the alleged scandals and even crimes that forced him to flee from Rome, Venice, and Turin, his professional and personal life have begun to unravel again. He is offered, by the very man he is rumored to have wronged, a respectable if slightly shabby apartment and yet another chance to redeem his character and career. He moves in to the curiosity and consternation of his caretakers, also tenants, three women whose reputations are of concern only to themselves.

Donatella, still unmarried in her mid-thirties, is plainly irrelevant. Yet, like the city she lives in, there are hidden longings in her, propriety the rule, not cure, for what ails her. She cares more for her bedridden grandmother and cats than overbearing aunt, keeping house and tending to a small garden, painting flowers and waxing poetic in her journal.

At first, she in awe of and certain she will have little to do with Stradella. Slowly, his ego, playfulness, need of a copyist and camouflage involve her in an inspired and insidious world, exciting and heartbreaking as she is enlarged by his magnanimity and reduced by his missteps, forging a friendship that challenges how far she will go.

A House Near Luccoli focuses on chance encounters, beautiful music, and the paradox of genius through an imagined intimacy with one of the most legendary and undervalued figures of Italian Baroque music.

**Q&A with DM Denton**

Thanks to Lauren Scott, Christine Moran, Ina Schroders-Zeeders, Kim Zollman Rendfeld, Angela Nevitt, and M.M. Bennett for their excellent questions.

When and how were you first introduced to Alessandro Stradella?

I first heard Stradella’s story and—knowingly—his music while driving to work in 2002 and listening to a Canadian classical music radio station show called In the Shadows. By the time I arrived at work, I could only remember his first name! Don’t tell my former boss but as soon as my computer booted up I Googled composers named Alessandro, scrolling down all the entries for Scarlatti to finally find a few mentions of ... Alessandro … Stradella!

In time I found out why Stradella—a celebrity in his time who produced a body of work that set him alongside the greatest Baroque masters—was, at best, a footnote in music history. Unfortunately, in the decades and centuries after his death, Stradella’s alluring ‘story’ took on an almost exclusively cloak-and-dagger slant in novels and operas, eclipsing his importance as a composer until his music was rarely performed. Only recently, thanks to a dedicated biographer and cataloger and some enlightened musicians, has that begun to change. In fact, I just discovered that Stradella’s “Sonata in D Major for Trumpet and Strings” was included in the soundtrack for the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

How did your interest in Alessandro Stradella grow to the point of wanting to write about him?

From the first, I was drawn to him because of the contradiction between the discipline of his work and recklessness of his behavior. It evoked a special connection for me, for I had personally seen the potential of talent and purpose sabotaged by incautious, even self-destructive behavior. The more I learned about Stradella’s triumphs and failures, and all the hard work and missteps in-between, the more I became fascinated by a personality at once charming and creative, intelligent and indulgent, cultivated and itinerant—an adventurer who made a few messes but also many masterpieces along the way.

Finally, in the summer of 2005, I really met Stradella in the intimacy my imagination created: observing him behind the scenes in great and small ways, surrendering to his charisma, and enjoying his self-determination while exploring why he so often put his career and life at risk. I often thought how much easier it would have been if there were more details available about his appearance, personality and the events of his life, but I also realized his obscurity offered an opportunity to discover him in less public ways: through his letters, even his handwriting, and especially his music that knew the ‘rules’ but pushed the boundaries.

Is the house near Luccoli of the novel’s title an actual residence?

There is the possibility that the last place Stradella lived in Genoa was a house near the Luccoli district. The house was most likely owned by Guiseppe Maria Garibaldi, one of the Genoese noblemen who supported Stradella. I couldn’t find any specific details regarding this house—such as its exact location or whether it still existed—but for the purpose of the novel put it on the map and set to ‘building it’ based on what my research and imagination came up with. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create a domestic setting for the meeting and developing relationship between Donatella, my fictional female protagonist, and Stradella; one that allowed the reader behind the scenes of his career and persona. The novel does, at times, escape such close quarters into the magnificence and mayhem of Genoa; but, I think, essentially remains an interior study of character and circumstance.

What surprised you the most in your research for the novel?

One of the most surprising things was discovering Genoa as a fascinating place and perfect setting for the story I wanted to write. Up until then I knew it as Christopher Columbus’ birthplace, otherwise—if most travelogues of Italy were anything to go by—for passing through on the way to somewhere else or avoiding altogether. La Superba (The Superb One) is a vertical city, back-dropped by the Apennine Mountains, surrounding a bay looking out past its famous Lanterna (lighthouse) and the Ligurian Sea towards the eastern Mediterranean. It has splendid churches, palaces and villas; but, also, in its medieval center, a labyrinth of narrow caruggi (alleyways) full of poverty, danger and sudden beautiful entrances to half-hidden palazzi. It is a conflicted place with, as Stradella’s chief biographer, Carolyn Gianturco, wrote, “a climate of public puritanism and private crime.” The novel is about human contradictions, too: Stradella’s, of course, but also Donatella’s. Genoa has been called “the most English city in Italy”, and so proved an apt location, as Donatella is a ‘daughter’ of both countries. 

Were you tempted to write yourself into any of the characters?

I was more than tempted. I knew I was there from the opening lines, disguised and revealed in the character of Donatella. Like me, she is Italian and English, a writer and artist, gardener, companioned by cats, wrapped up in solitude, contradictions, moods, and memories, and addicted to music’s presence in her life. Certainly, I could understand her struggle with surrendering to Stradella’s charm, talent and impetuosity; how it felt to be amazed, flattered and bewildered by such an attraction; and that in the end so much and so little changed for her through knowing him. This was a very personal story for me to write. Even more so once it was published, life imitating art when Donatella’s quiet grief and onward journey became my reality, too.

How did you write about music and are you a musician yourself?

I knew the most important thing to do was listen—constantly listen, Stradella’s music a soundtrack to the conceptualizing, researching, and writing of the novel until I was living with and even haunted by it like an invisible presence. Of course, I did refer to academic sources, and the notes on CD sleeves were also a great help. I used some musical terminology as it offered imagery the poet in me found too lovely to resist!

I have played the piano, guitar and Celtic harp, and sung a little. The pleasure I find in trying to translate music into words might come from my regret at not having pursued a musical career. I suppose writing about music is another way of participating in it. I found it very satisfying. I never set out to try to imitate, explain or even describe music, but somehow convey its elusive existence in the heart and spirit.

This question makes me think of the 1991 French movie about the 17^th century composers Marin Marais and Sainte-Colombe, Tous les Matin du Monde that asks: “What is music?” Sainte-Colombe insists words cannot describe it—that it is the sound of the wind, a painter’s brush, wine pouring into a cup, or just the tear on a cheek. I agree that it is impossible to express the essence or the effect of music in words, but I hope my readers experience something of its beauty and power through what I have written, especially as it is inexpressible.

How long did it take you to find a publisher for the novel, and what are you currently working on?

From completion to publication of A House Near Luccoli took about four years. Initially, I had submitted to literary agents for a year or so, but—perhaps sooner than I should have—gave up; except for creating a website, which was eventually noticed by the novelist Mariana Julia Neary who was influential in my signing with All Things That Matter Press. My affiliation with this small publisher has proved to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me, not only because of their willingness to publish the novel, helping me to make it the best it could be while honoring its vision and voice even to the extent of using my own artwork and design for the cover; but also because of the dedication and ongoing patience and encouragement they extend to all their authors.

I am currently working on a sequel to A House Near Luccoli which I hope to have completed by late spring or early summer. I continue to write poetry and small prose pieces accompanied by artwork for my blog, and have just published an illustrated poetry journal entitled, A Friendship with Flowers.

Diane (DM) Denton is a native of Western New York State, where she currently resides. Her writing life began as a child retreating into the stories and poems that came to her. Early on she developed an interest in history, especially European history, while her participation in and appreciation of music was encouraged through memories shared about her maternal grandmother, who was a concert pianist in Chicago in the 1920's. Some of the most defining years of her adult life were while she was studying and living in rural England, in a yellow-stoned village with thatched cottages, a duck pond, and twelfth century church and abbey turned Jacobean manor house. In addition to writing, music, art, and cats, she is passionate about nurturing nature and a consciousness for a more compassionate, inclusive, and peaceful world.

A House Near Luccoli is her first published novel. She is currently working on a sequel set in late Restoration England, and has also published an illustrated poetry book, A Friendship with Flowers. 

A House Near Luccoli is available in Paperback and Kindle Edition at amazon.com and as a NOOK Book at barnesandnoble.com; soon to be an audio book.

Diane invites you to visit her website: http://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com, where you can find more information on her publications, view her prose and poetry portfolio and artwork. Diane has a blog: http://bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com that features her work.

You can also find her on:

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Library Thing
Pinterest
Lulu
Google Plus

Excerpt Thursday: A House Near Luccoli by DM Denton

This week, we're welcoming author DM Denton, whose latest title is A House Near Luccoli. Join us on Sunday, when the author will offer a free copy of the book to a lucky blog visitor. Here's the blurb: 

Over three years since the charismatic composer, violinist and singer Alessandro Stradella (1639 – 1682) sought refuge in the palaces and twisted alleys of Genoa, royally welcomed despite the alleged scandals and even crimes that forced him to flee from Rome, Venice, and Turin, his professional and personal life have begun to unravel again. He is offered, by the very man he is rumored to have wronged, a respectable if slightly shabby apartment and yet another chance to redeem his character and career. He moves in to the curiosity and consternation of his caretakers, also tenants, three women whose reputations are of concern only to themselves.

Donatella, still unmarried in her mid-thirties, is plainly irrelevant. Yet, like the city she lives in, there are hidden longings in her, propriety the rule, not cure, for what ails her. She cares more for her bedridden grandmother and cats than overbearing aunt, keeping house and tending to a small garden, painting flowers and waxing poetic in her journal.

At first, she in awe of and certain she will have little to do with Stradella. Slowly, his ego, playfulness, need of a copyist and camouflage involve her in an inspired and insidious world, exciting and heartbreaking as she is enlarged by his magnanimity and reduced by his missteps, forging a friendship that challenges how far she will go.

A House Near Luccoli focuses on chance encounters, beautiful music, and the paradox of genius through an imagined intimacy with one of the most legendary and undervalued figures of Italian Baroque music.

**An Excerpt from A House Near Luccoli**

     It was a Sunday morning when she tried to return the folder with the copy included. Golone wouldn’t have it, leaving the house in a hurry.
     She might take advantage of Nubesta’s day off, as well, if Signor Stradella returned directly from whatever service his music attended while Despina napped after going to mass. Donatella trailed her aunt down small streets and across the square named for the closest church open to her faith even when she had none. For once she wished she wasn’t late. Santa Maria Maddalena was filled with music as sacred as its interior; a modest congregation settling amid its garlanded pillars and gilded moldings, nearer to heaven anticipated in the ceiling of the main altar. Her aunt looked for her to slide into their usual pew but Donatella’s skirt didn’t completely leave the aisle and she ignored a whispered objection more adamant as heads turned, putting herself forward as she never did except for communion.
     It wasn’t her intention to be seen reverent in the ritual of silk and linen vestments and covers, golden chalice, paten and tall tapers, or kneeling nearer the graceful pain of the crucifixion, to be overheard less than fluent in echoes of Latin. She sat back and it was obvious why she was there: not for the usual madrigalists shielding the altar and taking direction from the pulpit, but an almost heretical performance in the small gilded gallery to her left, a stone rolled away, resurrection in the pleasured expression of strings and a man to whom every passion was necessary.
      It wasn’t the place for bows except in prayer. Signor Stradella’s attention soon moved to the young lady by his side who had sung with sweetness, not strength.
     On the way home one of the better houses was inviting. Despina sent her niece on, Donatella only minding the weight of her veil and skirt in the May shower that wasn’t unexpected either.
     “Artemisia.”
     She didn’t turn around.
     By the time she hurried across the via Luccoli to face Saint George and the courage she lacked, the pavement was steaming and her resolve changing as quickly as the weather. Signor Stradella pushed the gate for her to go first, his rain-scented shrewdness surrounding her as he opened the front door.
     “My aunt will be home soon.”
     “Ah. We have a secret.” He slid his violin case from under his coat. At least they weren’t alone in the house, Cook singing without Despina there to mind, and Nonna calling. He tapped Donatella’s arm and asked how the assignment was coming along.
      “It’s finished.”
     “Bravissima. Let me see.”
     “We could use the breakfast room.”
     “Or less prudenza.”
     Nonna just wanted to know she was back. “And Signore Stradella?”
     “I haven’t seen him today.”
     “I think you have.”
     “Well, for a moment—”
     “In the rain?”
     “Oh. I should change.”
     “No. You look as you must,” her grandmother smacked her lips, “caught off guard.”
     Besides the folder of music, Donatella carried up a tray of limonata and anise cake, another of Nonna’s suggestions.
     “At last.”
     She smelled a candle burning, but it didn’t light the short hall. In the main room a window was open, with the settee moved closer to it, Signor Stradella a masterpiece resting there. One dark leg was stretched and falling over the back of the couch, a ruffled hand on its knee; the other bent to the floor and, even without stocking and shoe, appeared ready to walk away. He had also undressed to his shirt still buttoned high and wrinkled softly because it was made of the finest linen. A slight breeze blew his hair over his face. As he realized her burdened entrance, his right shoulder pillowed a half-smile and he reached out lazily.
     “Did you bring bavareisa?”
     “What’s that?” She clumsily laid the tray down on the gray marble hearth, not wanting to bend with her back to him.
     “Cioccolata and caffè.”
     “We don’t have coffee. It’s too expensive.”
     “I’ll pay for it.” He swung into sitting, hunched and rubbing his neck. “I’m getting one of my headaches.”
     “It’s the weather.” Donatella offered him a drink.
     He accepted it, the tips of his fingers friendlier than they should have been. “A veil over the sun, like a woman at Messa.” He tasted it. “Ah. Fresco.”
     “Squeezed this morning. Nonna says it’s good for clearing the voice.”
     “Cara Nònna.” He raised his glass, then emptied it with a kiss on its rim. “I’ve heard she was very rebellious. I wonder you didn’t become the same.”
     “I wasn’t meant to.”
     “How do you know?”
     “Because it didn’t happen.”
     She was still holding the folder.
     “I believe that’s why you’ve come?”
     He moved slowly to make space on the table where his inventions were layered and sprawled, so many at once. By the time she placed the copy there he was sitting once more, leaning forward, his head in his hands.
     “You can let me know.” She felt intrusive. “I’ve never seen you at Maddalena before.”
     He rose, admitting his rudeness. “I was testing the sound for a wedding there.”
     “It must be a special one.”
     “Ah. I’ll make it so.” His teeth showed. “Così.” He leaned over the table, the side of his face long and angled, eyelashes still and mouth taut, the first page flipped for the second, the second for the third, every one after that as unremarkable.
     “I’m untrained.”
     He looked at the first page again, his index finger, chin, and muted hum following the stanzas. “Ah. You see. Just a little more space here and this note a little higher, the words not quite aligned.”
     Her hope of impressing him was gone.
     “No, no.” He showed sensitivity to being misunderstood. “Even my last copyist, a priest, cursed my sloppiness.”
     “I did my best.”
     “Ah. Anyway, there are many arie in the serenata, besides duetti and trii and sinfonie. I need copies of each by—you saw the date; barely a month away. Before that for rehearsal.” He closed the folder, falling back on the settee. “And only so-called musicisti in Genova, too quick or too slow or distracted by ambizione. Will you do more for me?”
     She had to consider. His reputation. Her motivation. She couldn’t sign her name to the work, freely spend any payment, or even show some pride. Sneaking around, her aunt would eventually find out and put a stop to it anyway.
     “Is that cake?”
     “Yes.”
     “For the flies?”
     “Oh.” She rescued the plate.
     He took a slice, eating it almost without chewing. “As we live dangerously opening windows.” He reached for another, nodding for her to take what was left.
     “All right,” she answered.
     “Bene allora.”
     “I mean ... I will help you.”
     “Mangia.”
     “Oh, yes.” She broke a corner of the last piece on the plate.

     He got up to pour her a glass of limonata, staring as her lips, covered in crumbs, finally took a sip.

Diane (DM) Denton is a native of Western New York State, where she currently resides. Her writing life began as a child retreating into the stories and poems that came to her. Early on she developed an interest in history, especially European history, while her participation in and appreciation of music was encouraged through memories shared about her maternal grandmother, who was a concert pianist in Chicago in the 1920's. Some of the most defining years of her adult life were while she was studying and living in rural England, in a yellow-stoned village with thatched cottages, a duck pond, and twelfth century church and abbey turned Jacobean manor house. In addition to writing, music, art, and cats, she is passionate about nurturing nature and a consciousness for a more compassionate, inclusive, and peaceful world.

A House Near Luccoli is her first published novel. She is currently working on a sequel set in late Restoration England, and has also published an illustrated poetry book, A Friendship with Flowers. 

A House Near Luccoli is available in Paperback and Kindle Edition at amazon.com and as a NOOK Book at barnesandnoble.com; soon to be an audio book.

Diane invites you to visit her website: http://www.dmdenton-author-artist.com, where you can find more information on her publications, view her prose and poetry portfolio and artwork. Diane has a blog: http://bardessdmdenton.wordpress.com that features her work.

You can also find her on:

Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Library Thing
Pinterest
Lulu
Google Plus