Limoncello Yellow Book Tour with Traci Andrighetti: Guest Author/Giveaway

The Recipe for Limoncello Yellow

As an Italian-American with a lust for lemon, I know that to make limoncello you need three ingredients: lemons, sugar and pure grain alcohol. So, when I decided to write a humorous romantic mystery called Limoncello Yellow, I asked myself what the three main ingredients would be (besides humor, romance and mystery, that is). 

The first thing I thought of? Dogs! All of my dogs have had serious personality, but one in particular struck me as mystery worthy, and that was my parents’ black Cairn terrier, Francesca. Franki, as I called her, loved to walk. Whenever I was at my parents’ house, she would stare me down with the intensity of a hypnotist until I eventually broke down and got her leash. Once we were outside, Franki was hot on the scent trail, leaving no stone unsniffed. I always thought that if she were human, she would make a great detective. And she eventually did, because she was the inspiration for my (human) private investigator protagonist, Francesca “Franki” Amato. Of course, I also sprinkled in some actual canine characters, many of which are modeled after real dog loves of my life, for a little extra flavor.

Because limoncello is such a vibrant shade of yellow, I decided that my second ingredient had to be a colorful setting. When I ran through a mental list of flamboyant American cities, one really stood out: New Orleans, Louisiana. It has a unique mix of cultures, which includes a huge Sicilian-American population, and a fascinating history to boot. If you don’t believe me, just try to name another U.S. city known for plantation homes, voodoo and jazz funerals. Even NOLA’s nicknames are colorful: The Big Easy, The Crescent City, Saint City, and The City That Care Forgot. And New Orleans is associated with color: the purple, green and gold of Mardi Gras, not to mention the bold black and gold of the New Orleans Saints.

For the third ingredient, I knew I needed some ethnic spice. You can’t have an Italian-American PI in a multi-cultural city like New Orleans without a little dialect and foreign language, right? So, I started with the languages I know best (after my native English): Italian and Sicilian. Next, I added a dash of some fun accents, including those of a German female wrestler, Franki’s Sicilian-American grandma, and a Creole voodoo priestess, to name a few. Oh, and I included some stripper and cowboy jargon, just to make things really interesting. And intriguing!

So, I hope you enjoy my Limoncello Yellow concoction. Like its namesake liqueur, it’s meant to be sipped slowly and savored.

Limoncello Yellow
Publisher: Gemma Halliday Publishing (January 4, 2014)
E-Book File Size: 1904 KB
ASIN: B00GK3LY92
Print Length: 250 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1493690817
  

Synopsis

From debut author, Traci Andrighetti, comes a tale of murder, mayhem, and meddling Sicilian grandmas…

Francesca “Franki” Amato is a tough-talking rookie cop in Austin, Texas—until an unfortunate 911 call involving her boyfriend, Vince, and a German female wrestler convinces her once and for all that she just isn’t cut out for a life on the police force. So Franki makes the snap decision to move to New Orleans to work at her friend Veronica’s detective agency, Private Chicks, Inc. But Franki’s hopes for a more stable life are soon dashed when Private Chicks is hired by the prime suspect in a murder case to find out what really happened to a beautiful young boutique manager who was found strangled to death with a cheap yellow scarf. When she’s not investigating, Franki is hoping to seduce handsome bank executive Bradley Hartmann, but most of her time is spent dodging date offers from a string of “good Italian boys”—make that not-so-good aging Italian men—that her meddlesome Sicilian grandma has recruited as marriage candidates. As Mardi Gras approaches and the mystery of the murdered shop girl gets more complicated, Franki must decipher the odd ramblings of a Voodoo priestess to solve both the murder and the mystery of her own love life.

“Traci Andrighetti’s Limoncello Yellow had me tickled pink! Her smart, sassy
heroine wacky cast of characters, and vividly original settings had me glued to
the page. I can’t wait to read more from this author!”
- Gemma Halliday, New York Times bestselling author

“Traci’s writing is sharp and funny; the world she paints leaps off the
page and makes the reader laugh out loud…. A thoroughly
enjoyable new voice in fiction!”
- Kristin Harmel, Internationally bestselling novelist (The Sweetness of Forgetting)

About This Author

Traci Andrighetti is the author of the Franki Amato mystery series. In her previous life, she was an award-winning literary translator and a Lecturer of Italian at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics. But then she got wise and ditched that academic stuff for a life of crime–writing, that is.

If she’s not hard at work on her next novel, Traci is probably watching her favorite Italian soap opera, eating Tex Mex or sampling fruity cocktails, and maybe all at the same time. She lives in Austin with her husband, young son (who desperately wants to be in one of her books) and three treat-addicted dogs.

Webpage: http://traciandrighetti.com

Blog: http://traciandrighetti.com/blo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traciandrighettiauthor
Twitter: @TAndrighetti
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7383577.Traci_Andrighetti
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Traci-Andrighetti/e/B00GL3SN3G/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Purchase Link:
AMAZON

Giveaway: Leave a comment for the chance to win a print copy of Limoncello Yellow. US entries only, please. Ends 2/23/14 at 11:59PM EST.

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