The Renaissance Club
By Rachel Dacus
Fiery Seas Publishing
January 23, 2018
Time Travel Romance
May Gold, college adjunct, often dreams about the subject of her master’s thesis - Gianlorenzo Bernini. In her fantasies she’s in his arms, the wildly adored partner of the man who invented the Baroque.
But in reality, May has just landed in Rome with her teaching colleagues and older boyfriend who is paying her way. She yearns to unleash her passion and creative spirit, and when the floor under the gilded dome of St Peter’s basilica rocks under her feet, she gets her chance. Walking through the veil that appears, she finds herself in the year 1624, staring straight into Bernini’s eyes. Their immediate and powerful attraction grows throughout May’s tour of Italy. And as she continues to meet her ethereal partner, even for brief snatches of time, her creativity and confidence blossom. All the doorways to happiness seem blocked for May-all except the shimmering doorway to Bernini’s world.
May has to choose: stay in her safe but stagnant existence, or take a risk. Will May’s adventure in time ruin her life or lead to a magical new one?
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ISBN: 978-1-946143-41-9 ~ eBook ~ $6.99
ISBN: 978-1-946143-42-6 ~ Paperback ~ $16.99
THE HARDEST PART ABOUT WRITING THE RENAISSANCE CLUB
by Rachel Dacus
The research, including touring Italy, was a joy. I not only spent three weeks touring Rome, Assisi, Siena, Florence, and Venice and seeing some of the best art in the world, I also had the pleasure of studying that art beforehand, in an unforgettable art history course. Dreaming of what Bernini would be like in person, was also great fun. I’m a little like my heroine, May Gold, in that I could go off for hours while researching in imagined conversations with this tempestuous genius. I’d have a lot to say! So the writing of early drafts of May’s and Bernini’s story was just fun. I was in imaginative playland, and the fact that I allowed my characters to travel to other times made it easy to keep their thoughts and conversations in contemporary style, unlike historical novels, where you have to approximate the speech of another era, perhaps even another language.
Revising the manuscript was the very hardest thing. That’s always true in writing, for me. Revising this story was unusually lengthy, and that made it the hardest thing. At times it was even agony. There are many parts of this book you won’t see—not yet, anyway. They’ll appear as later books because many good advisors told me I had too many story arcs to really handle within this one novel. I love multiple story arcs and point-of-view characters, but apparently the marketplace doesn’t love them as much as I do. They’re often frowned on, and to be avoided, the smart people will tell you.
Also to be avoided are prologues, apparently. I began with a Prologue in my first draft. In this case, it seemed necessary. Time travel—wouldn’t you want to know why a tour guide can also be a time traveling guide? I wrote George St. James’ backstory about becoming a time traveler one day while he was in his fifth-grade class. One minute you’re listening to the teacher, and the next, zip! You’re listening to Julius Caesar. If you come back and casually mention this to your friend, you can get in a lot of trouble that time traveling can’t get you out of.
At first, I had several point-of-views, time traveling characters too, another thing that is generally discouraged. The more time travelers, the most places to go and Renaissance artists to meet, I thought. But no. Agents and editors persuaded me to excise two of those characters, or tone them down to bit players. Their time travels also had to go, though I stubbornly kept one, my main character’s elderly boss, whose travels to meet her favorite artist actually change her attitude toward my MC.
After all that deleting of people and scenes, another editor (my current one) asked me about writing a Prologue (yay! I had saved the one I already wrote!). The irony was delicious. The vindication of my original vision. Not only that, but she suggested I might make new books of the excised stories. So thank goodness I save stuff. My other time traveling characters found themselves a platform in what will be other novellas or novels. Luckily, I’m a literary hoarder and save all my deleted scenes and descriptions. You never know.
The other hardest part of writing this book was having to edit it so many times that I often became unable to read what was in front of me. I would fail to catch typos or awkward phrasing because I had read those sentences so often they appeared not as is, but as I wished them to be perfect. I’ve heard stories about this, that after a while, your proofreading of your own material becomes impossible because your brain literally sees what it thinks it should be, not what it is. I had a friend once whose job it was to proofread a local newspaper every night. He tried and tried to turn out a perfectly typo-free edition, but never could. One night at about three a.m., he finished, convinced he had turned in a perfectly proofed newspaper. He woke up the next morning to read a flawless paper—with the banner headline typeset upside down.
Revising was definitely the hardest part of writing this book. It occupied nearly seven years. Next time, I might do a little less revising until I reach my final editor. I am, nevertheless, grateful to all my beta readers, editors, and agents who worked with me. My acknowledgements page overflows with their names. Such thoughtful, insightful helpers as I have had to complete The Renaissance Club! I feel truly fortunate.
~ Praise for The Renaissance Club ~
Enchanting, rich and romantic…a poetic journey through the folds of time. In THE RENAISSANCE CLUB, passion, art, and history come together in this captivating tale of one woman’s quest to discover her true self and the life she’s meant to lead. Rachel Dacus deftly crafts a unique and spellbinding twist to the time-traveling adventure that’s perfect for fans of Susanna Kearsley and Diana Gabaldon. — Kerry Lonsdale, Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author
The Renaissance Club is a beautifully written story about a woman torn between two worlds—the present and the distant past. This time-travel adventure kept me guessing until the end about which world May would choose, and if that choice would be the right one. Highly recommended for lovers of time travel fiction or anyone looking for a compelling story about a woman trying to find happiness. — Annabelle Costa, Author of The Time Traveler’s Boyfriend.
The Renaissance Club shimmers with beauty, poetry, and art. Author Rachel Dacus sweeps her readers away to Italy with her, lifting the senses with the sights, sounds, and tastes of that stunning country; imparting her deep knowledge of Renaissance and Baroque art while immersing the reader in a gorgeously romantic story. This book is time travel at its best! — Georgina Young-Ellis, author of The Time Mistress Series
Rachel Dacus is the daughter of a bipolar rocket engineer who blew up a number of missiles during the race-to-space 1950’s. He was also an accomplished painter. Rachel studied at UC Berkeley and has remained in the San Francisco area. Her most recent book, Gods of Water and Air, combines poetry, prose, and a short play on the afterlife of dogs. Other poetry books are Earth Lessons and Femme au Chapeau.
Her interest in Italy was ignited by a course and tour on the Italian Renaissance. She’s been hooked on Italy ever since. Her essay “Venice and the Passion to Nurture” was anthologized in Italy, A Love Story: Women Write About the Italian Experience. When not writing, she raises funds for nonprofit causes and takes walks with her Silky Terrier. She blogs at Rocket Kid Writing.
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