Drum roll: Rhys Bowen's THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK, one for the ages...

HALLIE EPHRON: Mystery, romance, World War II, and humor… that alchemical mix makes a Rhys Bowen novel and she’s done it again with The Venice Sketchbook, hot off the presses today.

BREAKING NEWS! The Venice Sketchbook just got a STARRED review in Library Journal!

We’re all thrilled, and the description has me chomping at the bit to read it:

Caroline Grant is struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and a final whisper…Venice. Caroline’s quest: to scatter Juliet “Lettie” Browning’s ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries stored away for more than sixty years.

Irresistible… All I need to see is Venice and I’m hooked. I can’t wait to hear all about the book and how it came about. Rhys, for your loyal readers, what will feel familiar and what will feel new?

RHYS BOWEN: What I hope readers will enjoy in this book is the sense of place, being in Venice, experiencing so many aspects of the city. What might be different? It’s not a classic mystery, a crime and whodunnit.It takes place in three time periods, which is always a challenge to write. The mystery is a dying woman entrusting her great niece with three keys and a sketchbook of Venice and the layers of a hidden past being peeled away one by one.

HALLIE: You’re an artist yourself. Do you take along a sketchbook with you when you travel? Did that factor into writing this book?

RHYS: I always take my sketch books when I travel and the publisher has actually used one of my sketches on the hardcover of the book. So I suppose I was drawn to a woman who was an artist and who captured her experiences in sketches. And when you are sketching you notice details. I take pictures of door knockers, for example, to paint later.

HALLIE: Venice! My favorite city in the world, by the way. Me and a gazillion other seasoned tourists. It’s a city that cherishes its history. You can research what it looked like in the 1940s by walking around there today… or can you? (We all know you’re a stickler for accuracy.)

RHYS: My favorite city too. I have been there many times and every time it takes my breath away. I have a book of photographs comparing the same sites in 1900 and the present and really very little has changed, so I really could walk where my heroine walked and experience exactly what she saw.

Some businesses are still there—the bookshop in the street of the Assassins, Florian’s Tea Room, the Daniele of course, and the little shops that serves tramezzini—the small open sandwiches. I created a fictitious hotel for Juliet to stay in 1928 but it’s in a real place, and the hotel where Caroline stays in 2001 is where I love to stay—the Pensione Accademia with its lovely garden.But I actually did a lot of real research, including at the Correr Library, attached to the Correr museum in St. Mark’s Square.

Two librarians kept finding more and more books for me on Venice in the Thirties and Forties. They were all in Italian, of course, so my reading went rather slowly, but I got around this by finding the sections and pages I needed and having John photograph them for later study. The librarians were so enthusiastic that I had to say “Please, I think we have enough here!"

HALLIE: Still you had to go there for this book… didn’t you? How did that affect the story you had in mind to write?

RHYS: Any excuse to go back to Venice! And I always have to revisit the place I’m writing about, just to notice what my heroine sees and smells and experiences. I was there for one of the big religious festivals and realized how important they still are to Venice so these festivals become important points in the story. Also I was over on the Lido (The island with lovely houses and hotels and the Venice beach and casino) and I spotted a villa I wanted to use. So then I decided it belonged to a Contessa, and she became an important character.

As far as plotting ahead was concerned, I knew my heroine had to survive but I had no idea what she would have to go through. It was really harrowing to write about!

HALLIE: I love the idea of a character unearthing secrets from the past. Did you know what Great-Aunt Lettie’s secrets were before you started writing, or did you unearth them as you went along?

RHYS: Not all. And I can’t tell you here or I’d spoil the story. I knew the main thrust but people along the way asked her to undertake certain dangerous things I hadn’t expected.

HALLIE: What is it about World War II that has proven such fertile ground for your fiction?

RHYS: To me it is the last time when we had a sense of good versus evil. We knew we had to stop the evil before it swallowed the world. Everyone was involved, most wanting to do their part, others trying to profit and so many people not entirely evil or good. It was a time of heightened emotions, of great and small dangers and there are still so many stories waiting to be told.

I suppose I am so fascinated because I was born in the middle of it and my life was affected by it for years to come. I didn’t meet my father until I was three. He was out in Egypt and the Palestine. After the war it was common to see bombed buildings everywhere. Rationing went on until 1953. Of course the dangers were even greater in occupied Europe, which is why I’ve set two books there now. Ordinary people had to take extraordinary risks, putting their lives on the line, and often nobody knew about their bravery… as is the case with Juliet.

HALLIE: I love the way you write characters who are just on the outside, looking in. Fish trying to swim in waters that are just out of their league. Does that description fit Caroline as well?

RHYS: You’re right. I think my characters succeed because they are to a certain extent outsiders. Sometimes they are outside their own environment, like Juliet and Molly Murphy. Other times they don’t entirely fit in, like Lady Georgie who has a royal father and a lower class mother and thus feels herself slightly an outsider in both.

But such characters make great observers because everything is new to them and they have to be alert to survive. And Caroline—at the beginning of the story we might think she is living a normal, typical life: husband, child, job. But then this security is taken from her and it is only in Venice that she finds what she really wants.

HALLIE: Were you still writing this book when Covid hit? Did it make lockdown any easier, having such a fabulous fictional place to go via your manuscript?

RHYS: I must admit I gazed at my photographs so many times, usually with a sigh. Especially the videos and live shots. There is one taken from a motor boat when the bells are ringing. That always brought tears to my eyes. Bells are so typical of Venice. It should have been a gift to be able to focus and write without interruptions but in fact I found it hard to be creative. Having this worry always lurking in the background was like carrying a load on my shoulders, and thinking through muslin. I expect you felt the same way.

Luckily I had written half the book before lock down so I knew where I was going. And of course having a deadline is a great motivator!

HALLIE: Where can your fans find you to hear firsthand about this fabulous new book?

RHYS: I have already done most of my Zooms and interviews by the time the book is published but fans can visit the Poisoned Pen archives to see my interview with Barbara from last Saturday. Hank and I are chatting tomorrow, April 14, at Authors on the Air. I don’t have the link yet but will put it on my Facebook page. And next Sunday, April 18, I am doing a Facebook Live Zoom chat with Cara Black at Book Passage (bookpassage.com) at 4 p.m. I hope to see some of you there.

And thank you for hosting me, Hallie, and for all the wonderful support I feel from the Jungle Reds and our community.

HALLIE: I confess, if I I were traveling to Venice for "research" my sketchbook would be "scratch and sniff." Because the food! But also the light. The reflections. But capturing the excitement of meandering down a little side alley and emerging into one of Venice's gorgeous squares? For all that and more, read The Venice Sketchbook. 

Do you keep a travel journey or sketchbook?