Happy Valentines, 2018!

Happy, happy day!

Here in Brasil we celebrate in June 'lover's day' which is exclusively for couples - also a day to find a date. But Valentines - that we don't have - is much bigger, right? It's for any loved ones, friends, family and lovers. 
This year I timed two book releases to Valentines and would love to have a new chapter of the story I'm posting here, but it's not ready yet.

In Portuguese, it's the last volume of my first series - Princesas Possíveis. This romance is (freely) inspired by Sleeping Beauty.

In English, it's the second edition of my first book - Friendship of a special kind.

Here in the blog, 9 ways to live Pride and Prejudiciously, is arriving in a pivoting point. There are important information in this chapter, Bertha has been attacting too much attention with her trips...

So far we´ve had 3 trips, 3 alternative lives she experienced.
- Apron strings (crafts, modern)
- Dressed to kill (fashion, modern)
- Big fish, difficult catch (reality TV, modern)

The 4th will be a Regency mashup for P&P and Northanger Abbey and that is where I keep looping on the plot. As I see it, fanfic is the product of great intimacy with canon, that's why I think myself capable of writing P&P inspired stories. But meddling with Austen's Tilney and Moreland... Oh!

Anyway, it'll be lovely and hot and filled with sigficant bits of plot on the biggest story, Bertha's quest.

I'm sorry it's not ready today, but the chapter will worth the wait.

Happy Valentines, everyone!

We always believe the worst criticisms about us. Why?

I heard Carrie Bradshaw wonder about that in a SatC rerun, and it hit me hard. It's true, I always believe my worst critics even though they often are 1 to 50 - or less. Why is that?

There must be some convoluted psychiatric study about this behaviour, I'm no psychologist expert.

Book releases, as this Valentines, make me specially vulnerable to mean words.
With me, the funny thing is that a fully bad critic don't stick in my memory, I tend to see 'an agenda' behind it - like when my Portuguese version for '45 days in Europe with Mr. Darcy', someone posted a one star review simply saying 'it's not all that'. 

What really get to me are the good reviews with silightly spiteful innuendos. Those are imprinted in my mind and somehow are poweful enough to erase the praises.

Thankfully, my Instagram account is filled with those iceberg drawings of what success is made of because there are times I feel like giving up. Who doesn't?

Today I found this one:

primer magazine

To me, it says a lot. Resisting the ups and downs of our emotional journey, having intelligence to find wisdom in bad criticism to improve our game, finding strength to feed our resilience -  for all that we need to turn our backs to the crowd sometimes. Stay strong and move along.

I'm in one of these moments right now.

See ya.

A productive Sunday

hello,
I used yesterday as a computer free day and as I lazily played couch potato, I got to watch two great movies on TV - something very extraoedinary in our cable TV here in Brazil. More, both had a lot to do with the fanfic I've been posting, 9 ways to live Pride and Prejudiciously.

First I caught 'The Edge of Tomorrow' on its first 5min. I confess that Mr. Cruise is not an actor that compels me to watch movies. After the Cientology stuff, funny marriage and super exposed child and blah-blah-blah his image is a little weird to me. But I was here, the movie was there...
Turns out it's a hardcore 'Groundhog day' - and I looooove Groundhog day. 
The idea of having second chances is very appealing to me, testing new approaches and sideways, having an upper hand... Twenty minutes into the movie, the aliens were nothing to me, I was enthalled in twists the plot used to let us know the guy had done that before. I did like it.

Then, after lunch with family and Carnival hopping - we're in full season here in Rio - I caught 'Split' again in its first minutes. Like most everyone, I loved 'Sixth sense' and was very frustrated with 'Signs' and 'Unbreakable', enough to avoid watching 'The village'. But, it was on, I was on the couch... Well, it's not bad and the ending doesn't suck. 

As it finished, I found myself thinking that both movies could be connected to my WIP because Bertha takes her tea to 'live' different lives and try to make things better. Of course I won't compose a P&P fanfic uniting aliens to psycopaths or any of those but... The plot twists are very eloquent.

And, the irony of it, this week the groundhog appeared to predict the end of winter.
huh!

9 ways to live Pride and Prejudiciously - chapter 6

Hello, hello.

February is here and with it, Valentines and Carnival here in Rio. It's a very fertile time for flirting and loving and dating... Ah, I smell great times ahead!

Maybe because I'm so happy with my 1st book's 2nd edition: Friendship of a Special Kind is about to be released again in a revised and extended version. Still thinking if one of these new scenes should come here to the blog... maybe.

Anyway, in Belladama tea world, Bertha is calling attention everywhere. I mean it!

Let´s get to it in a short but very meaningful chapter.

Nine ways to live Pride and Prejudiciously

WIP, modern (mostly), adult (you know me...), fun, fluff, heart healing stuff.
read chapter 5 PART II
or START from CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 6
Heaven can't wait

        ‘Carlota.’

A thin voice drifted towards her like sea breeze in the summer.

‘Carlota…’

Her mind was so immersed in peaceful slumber; it was difficult to concentrate.

‘Carlota!’ A grumble and the voice got a little louder. ‘Tarnation! Answer me, girl!’

Lottie’s conscience was still engulfed in her after lunch nap, but somehow she heard her late grandmother perfectly. ‘Grandmamma!’

‘Carlota, what have you done, child?’

‘Huh?’

‘Yeens don’t fool me, say it.’

‘Oh, gradmamma! It’s so good to be close again… How are you doing? How can you reach me when I didn’t have the tea?’

‘Carlota, that purdy girl has horse sense. Why did you choose her to give the tea?’

‘Shit.’

‘Oh, yes.’ The old woman’s voice chuckled and coughed. ‘She’s fixin’ her way with our stuff.’

‘Damn… I thought Bertha could mess it all up, but she was kinda weird. Lost in life, you know? Seemed to be banging around like a ball in a pinball machine.’

‘Don’t get me bowed up, Carlota. You talk to her.

‘She won't answer my calls, gradmamma!... I try to phone her all the time and-’

‘Carlota!’ The old witch bristled. ‘This is out of kilter! Solve this!’

tenor

next chapter will be a travel back in time,

prepare your cuppa!

Celebrate good times, com festa!

February is here, let's celebrate the real begining of 2018!

Com a chegada de Fevereiro e o Carnaval, vamos celebrar o início de 2018 - de verdade agora!

 

                                                 PRINCESAS POSSÍVEIS volume 6   | FRIENDSHIP OF A SPECIAL KIND 2nd edition

final da série de contos de fadas modernos  | my 1st book revised and extended

 

                      9 WAYS TO LIVE P&Ply      |     ANTOLOGIA ROMANCES DE ÉPOCA

     a P&P fanfic, WIP full of witchcraft  | bailarinas, condes e curiosos no século XIX

E mais!

Antologia Romances de Época

Há projetos que estão escritos em nossas estrelas antes mesmo que a gente se dê conta. Esse é um deles!

Fiz amizade com a Fê Avellar por Insta, depois nos conhecemos na Bienal e olha só que lindeza... Ela me convidou para esse livro delicioso de contos históricos com outras autoras talentosas e oh-tão-fofas!

Tenho que dizer que é um luxo participar de um projeto gracinha como esse, tudo tão redondinho, tudo dá certo, uma satisfação...

Meu conto fala do amor de várias formas - eros e filia, sem spoilers. 

A bailarina, o curioso e seu irmão

sinopse conto Moira Bianchi

"Caroline era membro do corpo de baile da Académie de L'Opéra em Paris, 1810 quando foi convidada a ocupar o cargo mais importante: prima ballerina da peça que faria o tour pelo Continente naquela temporada. Era oportunidade de ouro tanto profissional quando romântica pois lhe daria a chance de rever os cavalheiros Ingleses que tentaram lhe fazer a corte no ano anterior..."

A equipe da THE BOOKS EDITORA caprichou nesta edição! 
Oh, que lindeza!

É muito amor envolvido!...

Olhe a sinopse oficial:
'Ah, os livros de época arrancam suspiros... Por anos, eles têm conquistado o coração das leitoras. Seus homens viris e determinados, contudo românticos e apaixonados... Mulheres sensíveis e sonhadoras, porém corajosas e desafiadoras... Vestidos longos e lindos, dos mais simples aos mais exuberantes. Carruagens, campos floridos, moinhos de vento... Diferentes e instigantes costumes e tradições. Reis e rainhas... Príncipes e princesas... Plebeus e plebeias... Uma viagem a uma época apaixonante e cheia de segredos. Época de amores avassaladores. Época que muitos desejariam ter vivido... Em suas narrativas, os autores retratam momentos de glória, vaidade e poder, conseguindo fundir exploração e pobreza. Enaltecendo nosso passado de forma que aprendemos e sonhamos com ele. Assim será nossa antologia. Não importa se em Terras altas, baixas, Galês, escocês... Não importa se vitoriana, medieval... Será uma antologia requintada e cheia de beleza, glamour e elegância.'

Vai preparando seu chazinho para entrar no clima! ;)

Nesta Antologia, somos 12 autoras então são 12 chances de se apaixonar perdidamente!

Teremos festa de lançamento com autógrafos, beijos, abraços.
Já, já aviso tudinho!

bj

It’s feminism, what else?

Hello,
since yesterday I've been swimming in feminist connundrums. Or maybe just feminine doubts. I don't know, for me this seems to be a thin line that not only me but everyone seem to cross every now and then.

It started with this post \/ from an Instagram account I love.

Then, on Twitter, I found an article about how slave women and children were trained to please men on Ancient Greek. And today I read about the 'daddy stitch'.

Of course there are moments when every one - not only women - want something different. If you only get gentle love, you might want a good fuck and vice-versa. And this Insta account does have inspiring firing posts but yesterday this photo seemed wrong to me. Did I trip thinking it could be a girl being taught to ask for what a guy wanted and not what she liked?

Maybe because of this devilish logarithms that controls our lives - I do think Google already has a 'minority report' chip inside me - there came the Twitter link to the Ancient Greek's prostitutes... 

If you've been here in my blog before you know how I hate the romance novels law attesting that every woman must be conquered by a manly man who rapes her into love. It kills me. Men love and lust is not charity towards any woman, it cannot be.

But I do know real women who put up with small evil in their husbands for the sake of a comfortable life. Outdated urban legend? I wish...

That brings me to the astonishing 'daddy stitch'. Oh. My. God. I had no idea such a thing existed! What a monstrosity! The article I read said something like 'the post-partum body cannot be the end of a sexist joke'. Yes! When a woman is on her most vulnerable moment, exhausted and full of hormones, a child in her arms, tears and all, someone heartless devilishily prepares her to please her partner... It makes me want to cry.

Doesn't this sounds like something out of 'Mad men'? And no one - incuding me- wants me to begin venting on that TV show again. Right?

I had a c-section when my boy was born because of a surgery I hd had a few years before. My gynos (2 female doctors, my friends, both also pregnant at the time) didn't even consider natural birth afraid my uterus wouldn't endure the stress of labour. But I doubt they'd consider such a thing... Would they? 

I'm so shocked I considered asking them if such a thing exists here in Brazil. Instead, I talked to hubs and... Guess? He says it's a common thing, men talk about this. 'To be a girl again.' He said it's refered as that. Urgh! Such pigs!

I'm disgusted. Appalled. 

Time should be up to all these things, shouldn't it?

And this is not only done to please men, it's done to please the partner in spite of the woman because, obviously, she is an object. Fuck. Damn. Shit.

After spending time revising my first novel Friendship of a Special kind with care worrying if what those Darcy and Lizzy do could be done these days, and dreaming about loving balanced relationships, I wasn't ready to face this objectifying.

It hurts.

Right?