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GIULIA TORRE

~ reading and writing romance

GIULIA TORRE

Tag Archives: wolfe island

Wolfe Island is now on Audible!

15 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by Giulia Torre in Audible, Giulia Torre, Lisa Kelypas, Wolfe Island series

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audible, bridgerton, historical romance, wolfe island

I love listening to books – while I work making jewelry for minusOne jewelry, while cooking or folding laundry, while walking the dog. I understand many people can’t take in stories this way, but after two doctoral programs – one in English Literature and the other in teaching it – I find it difficult to sit down and read anymore, especially without a pencil. One must be productive, and I can be productive and escape with Audible both at once.

It was Audible narrator Rosalyn Landor bringing Lisa Kleypas’ historical romance regency series to life that inspired Wolfe Island. So I’m thrilled to have found a true actor – Cassandra Medcalf – to share Wolfe Island with Audible listeners.

Message me via Facebook for a promo code for a free download.

Swan Bay

15 Saturday Nov 2014

Posted by Giulia Torre in Giulia Torre, Romance Cover Art, Swan Bay, Wolfe Island series

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best historical romance, giulia torre, historical romance cover art, romance cover art, swan bay, wolfe island

SWAN BAY 
Swan Bay cover painted 11 14 14

Simon Low is a rake. His name travels across New York on whispers and titters. Owner of a luxury department store on the Ladies’ Mile, it’s his job to create desire.

He makes women want things. 

At least, that’s what Chloe Swan’s brothers tell her.

But her brothers must have the wrong man.

Simon is the most awkward man Chloe has ever met. When Simon visits his brother’s grave at the cemetery managed by Chloe’s family, he refuses to touch her. He can barely look at her, let alone seduce her.

What in the world could he make her want?

But Simon has a secret. He and his twin shared an extraordinary connection, one that was lost when the two were separated during the storm. He had always felt that connection. And then, with the single gulp of the river that had swallowed his twin, had not.

Until he meets Chloe.

Now, Simon has the devil of a time telling her the truth…that he can feel her from the inside out.

Set in New York against the Thousand Islands Region and Manhattan in 1893, Swan Bay continues the story of Wolfe Island.

Yes! Sign me up! I want to read SWAN BAY.

Kindle, Paperback Publication Date: February 14, 2016.

REVIEW – The Angry Man by Joyce Dingwell (1979)

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Giulia Torre in Harlequin Romance, Hero Archetypes, Romance Cover Art

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1970s harlequin, Boon Harlequin, category romance, contemporary romance, cover art, giulia torre, Harlequin, hero, hero archetype, retro romance, romance book review, romance cover art, romance novel cover art, romance novel reviews, romance reviews, romance writing, romantic hero, vintage romance, wolfe island

The Angry Man Joyce DingwellThe Angry Man by Joyce Dingwell (1979) Harlequin Romance #2318 The Angry Man. How could I not?

First, a detour to cover art. I am working with an artist on the cover of book two of the RiverLust series, Simon’s Story. It’s called Swan Bay. I don’t believe you can paint a handsome man on the cover of a romance novel. Beautiful heroines? Yes. But the heroes always come off wrong.

Point in fact: The Angry Man cover hero is bleak. Crocodile Dundee with a longer face and shadowed, sunken cheeks. His hair is some kind of a poofy gray 70s mullet. Go ahead. Take a look at the cover of The Angry Man. Does he look angry to you? See that slight lift of his upper lip, over there on the right? The way his brows are furrowed together as he regards the heroine? Yes. The lovely doe-eyed one.

He is not angry; he’s sardonic, bemused. The man on this cover looks more perturbed than angry. Which is the perfect summation of Joyce Dingwell’s hero in this book.

English Polly loved her neighbor, who loved her sister, so her uncle sent her away. To Australia. Where after working on a statistics team as the resident non-statisician, she is told she has to stay another six months, because her former lover’s courtship of her sister is going more slowly than anticipated. So she takes the position of paid companion to Mrs. Clemance, young and beautiful wife of Thorn Clemance. Thorn is an ag specialist for a pharmaceutical company. A medical herbalist. But the beautiful Mrs. Clemance is not his wife. It’s his cousin’s widow. The hero is, in fact, not married. We learn this as the heroine does, and it’s a breathless beat.

Look at me, MissKendall, look at me, tell me what you see.’ ‘I-I don’t understand you.’ Polly tried to retreat a step, but he advanced, and at once they stood barely an inch apart. I think you do understand. I think you see a man who is a no-half-measures man. I think you see a man who would not be put off with subtleties, evasions and half-truths from any woman he made his wife. I think you see a man who would demand an entirety, a fulfillment, a conclusion, a completion.’ A pause. ‘I think you see a man who would be demanding four, not eight walls.”

Oh, dear. Here’s looking at you.

The ultimate logic of conflict? Unknown.

There is an ancestral puzzle requiring a flow chart to comprehend. And, for some reason, Thorn couldn’t tell Polly about his cousin’s widow’s recent sanitarium visit, her convalescence in his home, or the will that required that before she inherit, she must remain unmarried for two years. Which would have explained Polly’s charge to keep the young woman away from men.

The hero is in fact exactly like his picture (and the reader). Confused and frustrated. Not an awful book. Joyce Dingwell (b. 1908) wrote 80 of them. She knew how to write.

But for this one, in the end, I am left with only a single, bright nugget: Upon first introduction, her toes were dipped in the river until he found her and hauled her out. A shark had taken the hero’s dog from that very rock, only a week earlier.

There is no cure for a shark attack…When you put your gear on we’ll get back.’ ‘Gear? I’ve only removed my shoes and my pantyhose!’ He shrugged, saying almost uninterestingly: ‘Put ‘em on.’ Incensed, feeling a fool, hoping at least he would look away as she did so, Polly complied. It was not easy to wriggle discreetly into pantyhose, and she wished he would wander off. A tactful man would have. But he didn’t, he stood there right to the final hitch.

The final hitch? This whole line of books is worth reading for the settings. These girls get to go everywhere.

SWAN BAY cover sketch – Book Two

17 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Giulia Torre in Romance Cover Art

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best historical romance, cover art, giulia torre, swan bay, thousand islands, wolfe island

Working again with Tracy Hetzel of Long Blue Straw on the cover for the Wolfe Island follow up, Swan Bay. Again, set in the thousand islands of upstate NY in 1893. Though historically ‘accurate,’ the setting is fictionalized representation of Thousand Island Park and the surrounding region.

This is Simon’s story.Swan Bay sketch Giulia Torre Longbluestraw

For text and image teasers, visit my Wolfe Island Pinterest Board.

My husband proposes that this be called the RIVERLUST series. Which is funny. So may just stick.

Wolfe Island, illustrated

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by Giulia Torre in Romance Cover Art

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anatomy of a flower, best historical romance, best romance novels, giulia torre, historical romance cover art, romance cover art, romance novel cover art, romance writing, wolfe island

by Tracy Hetzel of Long Blue Straw

by Tracy Hetzel of Long Blue Straw

I am taking the leap and have contracted with illustrator Tracy Hetzel of Long Blue Straw to draw for the cover of Wolfe Island. It’s a risk, what with the norm being photographs of women in ball gowns draped over bannisters, or their heroes. Will it be possible to create an original cover and still convey the genre of historical romance? We will see.

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