Review : The Prisoner of Paradise by Rob Samborn

Medieval and modern Venice collide in ways you simply wouldn’t expect. I’ll never view a Tintoretto in quite the same way again!

On a trip to Venice, Italy, an American comes to believe that his true soul mate is not his wife, but a woman whose soul has been trapped in a Renaissance painting for 450 years--along with thousands of others. Teetering on the brink of insanity and navigating present-day and Renaissance Venice, he discovers a secret society that taps an ancient power to extract and imprison souls for eternity. He'll do anything to free his love, but freeing her means freeing all the souls--which the secret society will never allow.

The Prisoner of Paradise is at once a heart pounding adventure and a heart wrenching love story. Set in Venice and moving between the past and present we are immersed in a dual world. In the present we can taste and smell Venice as if we are there with all the tourists, and with Nick. And then there are Nick’s memories of a past life in 16th century Venice and his love for Isabella. Another Venice which the author deftly brings to life, and feels as real as the modern Venice we know so well. This is a novel with a powerful sense of place and characters I did not want to leave. It is a novel that continued to resonate long after I had turned the last page.

But if I thought that Prisoner of Paradise was s good then the second book in the series, The Painter of Paradise, was even better. So many unexpected turns and twists that I simply didn’t see coming. And they kept coming, right up to the thrilling finale.

I was fortunate to receive an ARC for this. There’s going to be a third book but I’m going to have to wait. Agh!! The torment! I feel like one of those souls – trapped in the painting.

This has to be one of the most original concepts I’ve ever come across, and, combined with skilled storytelling and compelling characters, as well as the author’s clear love of Italy and of art, this is a series that has huge appeal, and is really something rather special. It would make an amazing film or miniseries. Any producers reading this – take note!

I can’t recommend it highly enough. Now to plan a trip to Italy to go and look at some art….

In addition to being a novelist, Rob Samborn is a screenwriter, entrepreneur and avid traveller. He’s been to forty countries, lived in five of them (including Italy) and studied nine languages. As a restless spirit who can’t remember the last time he was bored, Rob is on a quest to explore the intricacies of our world and try his hand at a multitude of crafts; he’s also an accomplished artist and musician. Born and raised in New York, he lived in Los Angeles for twenty years, and he now makes his home in Denver with his wife, daughter and dog.

www.robsamborn.com

Revisiting Malta

In most of my novels the action moves around geographically. I love writing about interesting places, and I love visiting those places. Whenever I travel it is always with half a mind on how I can incorporate these settings into my fiction.

Red Rock was no exception. The action moves across Europe, and one of the places Danni ends up in is Malta.

I revisited Malta earlier this year, after quite a long gap, and I went back to some of the settings where Danni has her adventures. Malta has changes a lot in recent years, the most noticeable difference being the amount of development that has happened, and is still going on – skylines dominated by cranes and half-finished buildings all along the coast. But some things haven’t changed and it’s still easy enough to escape the main tourist centres and explore the island's less visited corners.

So here are a few pictures from my travels.

Megalithic ruins, very like the ones Danni hides in on Comino - 

only these are actually on Malta

Danni doesn't visit Gozo but I thought I'd include this - 

it's where the Azure Window used to be.

The citadel, Victoria, Gozo

Fishing village of Marsalforn, Gozo, on a stormy day

Comino viewed from the ferry. 

The chapel you can see was the inspiration for the monastery Danni finds.

Typical Maltese coastline with Gozo in the distance

Monster Hunting

As mythical creatures go the monster said to frequent this loch has to be one of the most famous. Standing here on a stormy day as the wind whips up the surface of the loch into a noise of whitecaps it is easy to imagine strange creatures lurking within those icy depths.

Some of the sightings are well intended – people who genuinely thought they saw something, even if in time it turned out to be no beast but the wind carving strange patterns on the water, or the wake of a boat that had already passed on by.

What really fascinates me though are the hoaxes. Some people went to considerable trouble to create their fake monsters – from doctored images – perhaps the most common – to models made of floating hay bales. For decades they held the world convinced, until their deception was finally revealed.

But that doesn’t mean it was all one big hoax to boost tourism, or even a series of mis-identifications. Stories of strange creatures in lochs and waterways have been part of our mythology for thousands of years. Perhaps our ancestors knew more than we realise.

And what of the sightings we haven’t been able to explain away.

Is there a monster in this loch? I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Comino Caves

Over at the Allsorts blog we've discussing our favourite character or place from our books, and I've picked Comino - that tiny rocky island in the Malta archipelago, between mainland Malta and Gozo.

That's me in the pink mask at Comino Caves, feeding the fishes.

Ah - but how does Comino feature in Red Rock - and what is the significance of those caves?

You're just going to have to read it to find out!

Sea Ice and Seamagic

The Seamagic website is now up and running and packed with all sorts of fascinating pictures and articles, even a poem or two, from a variety of contributors – all of whom share a passion for all things marine. If you haven’t been over there yet then I suggest you take a look – and do bookmark it – there’s new stuff being posted all the time and it looks to be shaping up into a fascinating project!

At the moment I’m talking about sea ice and posting pictures I took in the arctic during my days on board the survey ships.

But I’m also talking about sea ice because of its relevance to my forthcoming novel, Red Rock.

You may have already checked out the blurb for the novel which is now up at the Greenhouse website. And if you have you will have noticed the opening lines:

“The world is changing. The ice is melting. But as the icecaps retreat secrets are revealed” …

There isn’t any sea ice in Red Rock. In fact it’s all gone, but that’s the point. And as the ice melts this has an effect on other things – sea levels rise, the climate changes.

If I went back to the Greenland Sea I’m not sure how much ice I would find, compared with what I saw all those years ago. So I’m posting those pictures of the ice that was – a seamagic that may soon be gone.

The world is changing….

The Mars Mission....

I couldn't resist posting this, having seen the launch pad in preparation less than a month ago. It would have been something to be there and watch the actual launch!

I've always been fascinated by Mars... by the intriguing possibility that there may once have been life there...

So what will they find I wonder?

Rocket Science

I’ve been rather quiet in the cyber world recently – you may not have noticed since I left a couple of posts programmed in to appear while I was away – but I’ve been in Florida, doing the Disney thing with the husband and kids.

For me the highlight was this place – the Kennedy Space Centre - just look at all those lovely rockets!


It’s incredible, isn’t it, to think that we sent men to the moon with 1960s technology in space craft with less computing power than I have on my mobile phone! It just goes to show what we can achieve if only we put our minds to it.

So here I am back to October rain and falling leaves. But there was a nice surprise waiting for me – my contributor’s copy of the September issue of Aoife’s Kiss which contains one of my short stories ‘Down to the Sea’. This story was accepted over a year ago and I’d quite forgotten about it.

A Sense of Place

When I write I always like to set my stories in places I've actually visited. For instance, I've never set a story in modern day America and the reason is simple - I've never been there.

Of course I haven't been to the Moon either but since so few people have I think that, with the right amount of research, I can get away with it.

The reason for this is simple. I like to feel a place when I write about it. It's not something tangible, but if I can feel a place as I write, then hopefully the reader can too.

So as you've seen from my previous post I've been in Germany. I've been there before of course, but the fact remains that Germany 'feels' very different from say France or Italy - and that's just in Europe - go further afield and the feeling is different again.

I was lucky to be there for the Bremen Carnival. No pictures can capture the atmosphere - the pounding drums of the parade, the crush of people, the vendors selling bratwurst and giant pretzels, and of course, much drinking of beer. But here are some anyway.