This week, we're pleased to welcome author V. Knox with her latest novel, SECOND LISA, book one of a trilogy. The author will offer a free copy of Second Lisa to a lucky blog visitor. Be sure to answer the question below and leave your email address in the comments of today's author interview for a chance to win. Here's the blurb.
Art History with a Twist of the Paranormal
A story of lost identities, missing paintings, and love carried over five centuries. A biography of Leonardo da Vinci, his forgotten sister, Lisabetta, and her lover Sandro Botticelli, brought to life through the mysteries of reincarnation and the powers of creativity.
A story of lost identities, missing paintings, and love carried over five centuries. A biography of Leonardo da Vinci, his forgotten sister, Lisabetta, and her lover Sandro Botticelli, brought to life through the mysteries of reincarnation and the powers of creativity.
The rebirths of art and love, and the challenges and advantages of autism: the autistic and the artistic. Reincarnation or insanity? What if Veronica Lyons isn’t crazy, but madly inspired?
Learn more about author V. Knox
If
your name were to be irretrievably lost, cut apart from your time and
permanently
erased
from the world, overshadowed by the lies of silence... were you ever truly
here?
FROM THE AUTHOR - WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
I wrote ‘Second Lisa’ as
a direct result of studying art history during my Fine Arts Degree at the
University of Alberta. Mention of lost paintings into cold trails meant they
could still exist unrecognized. Also, the artist’s themselves often corroborated
with their students and masters to produce group works, and since paintings
were not traditionally signed, the ‘authorship’ of works becomes speculation
based on obscure techniques of style and the provenance of many renaissance
paintings becomes a mystery. That sort of mystery worried my brain and from
time to time I would form a theory. After researching the archives for details
of Leonardo da Vinci’s times, I came across a reference to one of his half
sisters whose name was Lisa (Lisabetta). alarm bells rang. I had a list of
credible facts:
1. Some believed the
‘Mona Lisa’ was a self-portrait, and if she was a sibling, wouldn’t that
explain a family resemblance of brother and sister?
2. Leonardo was too
attached to the ‘Mona Lisa’ to be parted from it.
3. There was an
overlooked workforce of female assistants in the great art studios who were
anonymous and often the sisters, wives, and daughters of the male artists.
4. Leonardo was born out
of wedlock and lived with his mother, Catarina, who had been reduced into
circumstances where she was married off to a peasant.
WHAT IF
What ifs began to
collect around these thoughts:
What if they Leonardo
and Lisabetta were emotionally alike and especially bonded through their
similar passions about art?
Since Caterina lived
near her lover, Ser Piero da Vinci, was it not possible that she also conceived
a ‘second’ love child sired by him? What if Lisabetta was Leonardo’s full
biological sister? Wouldn’t they look more alike than the other siblings?
What if Leonardo taught
his sister to become his assistant? What if Leonardo’s eccentricities were
overcome by his sister’s more grounded approach to the business of art?
What if Leonardo painted
two ‘Lisas?’ What happened to the other
version?
What if the Louvre’s
‘Mona Lisa’ is the second portrait painted of Lisabetta – the ‘second Lisa?’
And finally, in a state
of fantasy: what if the ‘Mona Lisa’ was trapped in her painting upset from
being unidentified and overlooked by history? Isn’t it metaphorically accepted
that a master artist can ‘capture a soul’ in a portrait?
What would it take to
release Lisa? Who could release her and why?
In the healthiest form
of creative channelling, Lisa (the sister) began to tell me her story.
Character’s names often
tell the theme of a story, and so I used the name, Veronica, for the woman who
is able to connect with the spirit of Lisabetta. Unfortunately, it is also my
first name, but I was compelled to use it because it is the Latin Anagram for
‘true face’ and the misidentified icon ‘The Mona Lisa’ is arguably, the most
famous face in the world. Veritas = truth, and icon = image: thus the name
Veronica translates to ‘truthful image.’ One has to use the truest name
possible, and no other resonated as well.
**Author Interview with V. Knox**
You write about ghosts a
great deal, so do you believe in them?
So far, my answer is no.
I keep an open mind. What I do believe, is that they’re the perfect characters
for narrating an historical fantasy. The best way to tell a story about people
long dead, is to directly interact with one of them. The information and
perspective they’re able to provide is invaluable, so they are a great literary
device to explain and give closure to a mystery.
Another of your themes
is humans directly interacting with art. How did that come about?
I am a painter and can empathize
with artist’s moods, right-brain muses, art materials, and the interaction with
a painting that emerges almost the way a story does. Shapes and colors appear
and disappear until they feel right. The links between hand and eye is similar.
One hand wields a brush to tell a story, and the other paints a story with
words. Art is all about subjective interaction with each viewer. It makes a
person look and think as much as admire a technique.
Paintings tell stories
on several levels. Studying art history, means being introduced to many
mysteries because artworks tend to be lost over time, along with the names of
the people who posed, and the hands who created them. The relevance of the
subordinate workforce of women who were artists in the great studios, have been
lost, entirely So much of art history is guesswork. Their stories are even more
elusive. Over time, the names of many
artists and almost all of their subjects, become lost, and since many paintings
were group efforts, it is curious to play amateur detective and unpick the iconographic
clues within the formal study of art history. It is an inexact science. We have
to speculate, and so I tune in and let the ghosts of the artists tell their
stories. So many documents and paintings are ‘now lost’ and it intrigues me how
they turn up out of the blue. Also, some paintings just naturally ‘haunt’ me. They
compel me to fill in the blanks. Especially portraits that ‘capture’ a soul.
Knowing these artists and subjects existed in real time, I wonder how they
lived, what drove them to survive, and who they loved.
How much of your
historical fantasy is also historical fiction?
I have used
well-documented academically accepted dates for all the historical event and
anecdotes, and artworks, as well as the names of real people for the major
fifteenth-century characters. No historical fiction is without imagined dialog.
Why did you turn one
volume of ‘Second Lisa’ into a trilogy?
We all learn on
variations of a curve. One volume turned out to be a formidable size of nearly
eight-hundred dense pages which was difficult to market as a first novel, and
yet there were two long interwoven stories to tell from two very different
centuries. I also happen to love lengthy novels.
As a lifelong graphic
designer, the narrow margins bothered my sense of layout, and to be practical,
I was persuaded to re-release three books with roomier margins. This also
allowed me the opportunity of adding several pages of illustrations to support
the renaissance characters, and to rewrite the opening.
I have varied the color
of the three front covers and added the corresponding number: book one is
golden yellow, book two is sepia, and book three is black and white.
What other books have
you written?
I wrote Woo Woo the
Posthumous Love Story of Miss Emily Carr – a paranormal love story about the
iconic Canadian artist, Emily Carr, as an homage to her after I moved to her
hometown of Victoria, British Columbia. She was an eccentric woman who had a
pet monkey named, Woo, and she worked with the shamanistic culture of the first
nations. On the personal side, she had a great love that she spurned, and I
have written how she resolves this in the afterlife.
So, the word ‘woo’ represents three things:
Woo, the monkey, the term woo woo equals unexplained supernatural events, and
wooing is also the ‘art’ of seducing a lover.
My first foray into
writing for preteens, is ‘T WINTER –
the first portal’ – a time-slip fantasy for ten-year-olds interested in science
and... of course, ghosts. It is a novel that will expand into several sequels as
the adventures of a pair of twins takes supernatural twists and turns to save
the planet from a natural disaster.
Why is ‘T Winter’ set in
England when you’re a Canadian author?
I was born in England,
and the grand estate of Bede Hall (in the story) called for an old village and
a long history of an eccentric family. There were no examples of this I could
find near my home in Canada, and I am not familiar with the old family estates
elsewhere. To some extent a story tells me the names of its characters and where
it wants to take place, but I gave all the locations fictional names. I was
able to recall many places I knew from my childhood, but mostly from my teenage
years when I returned to the county of Surrey to attend art college.
In some cases, I have
used North American words and phrases which transcend both countries language
anomalies. I believe these differences are becoming less important to isolate.
What is your next book
about?
My latest book is ‘The
Day I Met Botticelli – a paranormal romance... a love story for seniors who
think young. I think of it as a cross between ‘The Portrait of Dorian Grey’ and
a modern day ‘Pygmalion.’
It will be
self-published in February or March, 2014. Again, a woman reacts with a
painting, this time one by Sandro Botticelli, and strange events begin to
happen.
Linton Ross-Howard is a
retired art history professor, who wonders what she will do with her time.
Elements from ‘The Thorn Birds’ by Colleen McCullough that
long-ago triggered a response of resisting love, and a bizarre incident in
Linton’s past, return to haunt her.
Vicarious love is all
that’s left after the magic wand of old-age waves over a less than stellar
love-life – the spontaneous REM sort and the ‘Movies R Us’ sort, and the daydreams
that hover after witnessing a young couple holding hands across the table.
Failing eyesight can rarely meet across a crowded room anymore, and even if
they could, no ‘sights for sore eyes’ beam back those old hellos pregnant with
intimate possibilities.
Sixty-four year-old Art
history Professor, Linton Ross-Howard’s, retirement, allows her time to mull
over her romantic past – the loves that failed to show and the ones that got
away without leaving footprints, but one suppressed memory returns to offer a
surprising new leash on romance and age she could never have imagined.
E-MAIL: veronica@veronicaknox.com
WEBSITE: http://www.veronicaknox.com
Your chance to win starts now, by answering this question from the author: What portrait have you seen that looked back at you and seemed to speak? What did the figure say?
*all entries are eligible to win
