I’VE GOT DESIGNS ON YOU
Privet! (That’s Russian for “Hi!”).
I’m Nelli Rees and my first novel,
‘Ghost Love’, is out now, published by Phaze, billed as a romantic thriller
with a flavouring of the supernatural. ‘Ghost Love’ has two intertwined stories
set twenty years apart these following the adventures of a Russian girl, Tonia,
as she discovers that true love really does conquer all … even death.
When I’m not writing I fill what little
time I have left with creating and writing about making jewelry. I began making
Murano glass beads and jewelry pieces because I like playing with colors - just
as a writer likes to play with a reader’s emotions. One of my signature designs
is my "Matrioshka" bead, which is a riot of bright colors and bold
patterns. It also hints to my Russian origins: “Matrioshkas” are the wooden dolls
which have a family of smaller dolls nestling inside, they are a favorite toy
of Russian children. My "Matrioshka" beads brought me 1st Place in
the prestigious UK Bead Magazine competition, in the category of handmade
lampwork beads.
When I come to think about it, there’s a
great deal of symmetry between writing and jewelry making. Not only are they
both engrossing occupations, they’re ones that demand care, attention to detail
and become all-consuming. But the similarities go further than that. Writing
fiction involves putting together a plot which is coherent, engaging and which
seizes the reader’s attention. It’s exactly the same with jewelry making.
For
example, this necklace, “Pink Flowers”: it took me quite some time designing
how all the individual elements – the glass beads, the silver spacers, the
hand-dyed silk ribbon and the clasp – would fit together to make a piece which
is coherent, engaging and which seizes the attention of anyone seeing it.
The other thing a good story demands is
interesting characters: those who stand out from the crowd and stick in the
reader’s memory. The beads I create serve exactly the same purpose; they’re the
focus of attention and hence I take great pains in crafting them so that you’re
lured to take a closer look. Even the plain beads have their role to play,
complimenting the focal beads and enhancing their beauty. Their function is
like the ‘supporting’ characters in ‘Ghost Love’: not memorable by themselves
but serving to put the passions and foibles of the lead characters in sharper
relief.
Coco Chanel once said that perfume
heralds a woman’s arrival and delays her departure. It’s exactly the same with
good jewelry - and with good fiction. I’ve often lost all track of time when
I’ve been engrossed in reading a good book. My hope is that ‘Ghost Love’ will
have exactly the same effect on its readers - just like my jewelry pieces on
those who admire them.
Ghost Love
Nelli Rees
Genre: Romance (with a hint of the paranormal)
Publisher: Phaze
Date of Publication: 20th January 2015
ISBN: ISBN-13 978-1-60659-849-8
ASIN: B00SNYRXH8
Number of pages: 332
Word Count: 90,000
Cover Artist: Niki Browning
Book Description:
In the madcap, chaotic days when Communism crumbled in the USSR, Tonia meets and falls in love with Englishman, Peter Monroe. Despite the protests of her family and the more strenuous
objections of the KGB Tonia agrees to marry Peter only for him to mysteriously disappear.
Twenty years later a life-toughened Toni must revisit these bitter-sweet memories when she finds herself and her daughters endangered by the consequences of that love affair.
In her despair Toni comes to realise that true love really does conquer all … even death.
Excerpt: Prologue
Present Day:
Dorset, England
Excitement being
a kindred spirit to fear, Toni was undecided as to whether it was a trickle of
fear she felt shivering down her spine or a trickle of excitement.
As she sat
staring at the screen of her laptop, the darkness shrouding the room seemed to
draw in on her: her head swam, her palms became clammy. Tears welled up in her
eyes. She blinked them away, hoping that by doing so the message on her screen
would disappear. It didn’t.
Peter Monroe
wants to be friends on Facebook
Hesitantly she
maneuvered the cursor over the ‘connect’ button and pressed ‘enter.’ The screen
mutated to show the Facebook page for ‘Peter Monroe.’ It was Peter! She
recognized the profile photograph instantly. She’d taken it. She remembered
posing him in front of the bandstand in Gorki Park on that spring day back in
1990, remembered laughing at the stupid faces he pulled, remembered the way his
long chestnut hair flopped over his forehead, remembered…
How could she
forget? He had been her one true love.
Love. A word
made empty by misuse…by overuse. She wondered how many had ever endured the
touch of real love, that soul-eviscerating sensation that comes when you know
you have found your soul-mate. Very few, she decided. Perhaps this was all for
the good: true love brought anguish in equal measure to joy. As the last twenty
years had taught her, finding true love was a bitter-sweet blessing. Her
fingers trembled as she typed.
Is it really
you, Peter?
The reply was
instantaneous.
Yes…I’ve missed
you, Tonia.
She couldn’t
stop herself: the tears flowed down her cheeks.
But…
She paused, terrified
that what she would type next might cause this marvelous mirage to vanish.
But I thought
you were dead.
The seconds
ticked by, then:
I am.
About the Author:
Nelli Rees, born in Moscow, trained as a linguist and a musician. With her future husband Englishman Rod she worked and travelled around Russia, finally coming to live in England in 1998. Nelli has had several successful careers: recording a critically acclaimed nu-jazz album “Jazz Noir”, becoming an award-winning jewellery maker, writing a book “Glass Bead Jewelry Projects”, and doing all this whilst being a mother and a wife. “Ghost Love” is Nelli’s first novel and draws heavily on her own experiences as a young woman in Soviet Russia and the obstacles she and her husband-to-be faced during those difficult times.
Video of Nelli performing "Falling In Love Again":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2J5Phukc8Y
2 comments:
Thank you for posting "Ghost Love" on your blog! So excited to be here! :)
And the "Matrioshka" looks fabulous!
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