BLURB:
Sir
Balduin de Soler gave up long ago on love. He never had the means to support a
wife until an unexpected advancement in his fifties allows him to reassess his
future just as the lovely Lucianna enters his life.
Lucianna
Fabio harbors a secret, painful memory from her past that has kept her unwed,
as well. Now in her forties, she thought herself too old to marry until she
meets Sir Balduin. Now suddenly their lonely autumn lives feel very much like
spring again . . . until Lucianna’s brother appears without warning and
threatens to revive the secret that will destroy Lucianna’s second chance at
love.
“Loving
Lucianna" is the first in my new “Hearts in Autumn” romance series,
medieval romances revolving around heroes and heroines “in the autumn of their
years.” Because you’re never too old to fall in love!”
Excerpt #1
[This is an
excerpt from a flashback in Loving Lucianna. The heroine, Lucianna, was
abandoned as a baby to a nunnery in medieval Venice. There she made friends
with another young girl, named Elisabetta, who was sent there by her father to
be educated. In this scene, the girls are 10 years old.]
“How
do you know your father’s name was Panfilo?” Elisabetta asked.
Lucianna
shrugged.
“Why
will you not tell me? I have kept no secrets from you.”
“It
is not a secret,” Lucianna said quickly, stung by the hurt in Elisabetta’s
voice. “It is only—special. I do not want it mocked.”
Elisabetta
sat up, her dark eyes a-flash. “You think I would mock you?”
“Speak
softer,” Lucianna hissed. She regretted that her words had aggrieved her
friend.
She
had grown to trust Elisabetta as she trusted her own heart. But— “It is not you
I fear, it is Sister Maria Angela. If she came upon us and heard me, she would
laugh, or perhaps she would scold and say I made it up and then she might call
me devil child.
“That
is what she did when she made me pick berries for the infirmary from the
barberry bush and I called it an evil plant for pricking my fingers so badly
that I could not stitch for a week.”
Elisabetta
eyes widened in awe. “Is that not the one known as the Holy Thorn?”
Lucianna
nodded with a sigh. “Because it was part of the crown of thorns borne by Our
Lord upon the cross. But I was not thinking of that when it pricked me. Sister
Maria Angela said I had spoken a blasphemy—”
“—and
switched you,” Elisabetta finished before Lucianna could. Lucianna nodded
again. Elisabetta pressed her lips together very tightly.
“I
do not want her to say that my father’s name is wicked, too,” Lucianna said.
“And so I must keep how I know to myself forever and ever.”
Joyce DiPastena
dreamed of green medieval forests while growing up in the dusty copper mining
town of Kearny, Arizona. She filled her medieval hunger by reading the books of
Thomas B. Costain (where she fell in love with King Henry II of England), and
later by attending the University of Arizona where she graduated with a degree
in history, specializing in the Middle Ages. The university was also where she
completed her first full-length novel...set, of course, in medieval England.
Later, her fascination with Henry II led her to expand her research horizons to
the far reaches of his “Angevin Empire” in France, which became the setting of
her first published novel, Loyalty’s Web (a 2007 Whitney Award Finalist).
When she’s not
writing, Joyce loves to read, play the piano, and spend time with her sister
and friends. A highlight of her year is attending the annual Arizona
Renaissance Festival. She lives with her two cats, Clio and Glinka Rimsky-Korsokov,
in Mesa, Arizona.
Website:
www.joyce-dipastena.com
Blog:
http://jdp-news.blogspot.com
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJoyceDiPastena
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JoyceDiPastena
Did you know
that Lucianna (the heroine of “Loving Lucianna”) has her very own Pinterest
board? http://www.pinterest.com/jdipastena/loving-lucianna/
• Links to
where book is sold
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Loving-Lucianna-Hearts-Autumn-Romance-ebook/dp/B00NG8NWGW
Barnes &
Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/loving-lucianna-joyce-dipastena/1120336776?ean=2940046158069
iTunes/iBooks:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/loving-lucianna-hearts-in/id917707143?mt=11
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/474925
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