Book Stop Corner

Sorry for missing away from my blog! I was sooo busy with work, stress and something good is happening right now in my life that is enough to distract me from blogging and reviewing! ;)
So today in an all new session, we have Traci Andrighetti who entranced us with her Franki Amato series featuring a quirky and funny PI running smartly to solve the crimes while trying to put her messy love-life on track. So without wasting a minute, let's talk with Traci to know more about her quirky protagonist, her life and books and beyond!

Read the review of Limoncello Yellow
Read the review of Prosecco Pink 






Me: Hello and welcome to my blog, Traci. Congratulations on your new book, Prosecco Pink. Please tell us briefly about the story behind your book, Prosecco Pink.

Traci: Prosecco Pink was inspired by Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana. I’ve been there several times, but most recently I went with friends from Rome (I wanted to show them something that doesn’t exist in Italy). While we were at Oak Alley, I decided that a plantation would be the ideal setting for a mystery, precisely because these homes have such a controversial history in the United States. And when I remembered that the master bedroom at Oak Alley is called the “lavender room,” I decided that my plantation would have a “pink room” with a Sleeping-Beauty style murder…


Me: What inspired you to create "Franki Amato" mystery series?

Traci: The Franki Amato mysteries were born in an online writing class called “Introduction to Chick Lit Writing.” I’d never written fiction before, so I decided to follow the sage advice to “write what you know.” Since I grew up reading mysteries, I convinced the course instructor to let me write a chick lit mystery. She agreed, so I created an Italian-American private investigator and picked New Orleans (one of my favorite cities in the world) for my setting. I’ve had a lot of crazy adventures there, and elements of these are reflected in my books, as is my passion for language and culture.


Me: Cozy Mystery is lately blooming in the crime books genre. Did you always enjoy reading/writing cozy mysteries? And how will you define "cozy mystery" in your own terms?
Traci: Actually, I had never read a cozy mystery when I started writing, and I had never read Janet Evanovich either, which is ironic since my books are often compared to hers. I thought that I was writing comedic chick lit mystery. But the publishing industry turned away from the phrase “chick lit.” So, it has been interesting to see how my publisher, booksellers and readers have categorized the series. Cozy mysteries, as far as I know, feature a protagonist who is not a professional crime solver, and they don’t contain graphic violence or sex, or explicit language. Because Franki Amato is a PI, my books don’t fit neatly into the cozy mystery classification.


Me: Franki Amato is your heroine. Tell us one trait of hers that intrigues you the most?

Traci: Honestly, I’m intrigued by her desire to fight crime. I find the criminal mind fascinating, but I don’t know how anyone could deal with criminals for a living. I’m a total coward—I don’t want to get hurt, and I especially don’t want to get shot. Ever.


Me: You are an award-winning literary translator. Why did you leave that career path and switch to writing novels?

Traci: I left literary translation when I realized that I would need a PhD to be taken seriously within the profession. I eventually earned a PhD, but I didn’t return to translation mainly because it’s such a hard field to break into—not many U.S. publishers want to publish translations of foreign literature. But, in a bizarre twist of fate, I recently signed a contract with Gemma Halliday Publishing to translate four books by Gabriella Genisi, the Italian crime fiction writer who inspired me to write my own books (How weird is that?). My translation of La circonferenza della arance (The Circumference of Oranges), the first book in Genisi’s Inspector Lolita Lobosco series, will come out in late summer or early fall.

 
Me: How will you describe your journey so far as an author?

Traci: Mind-blowing! Before I’d even finished writing Limoncello Yellow, I submitted a short excerpt to a contest to win a month of mentoring from Gemma Halliday, and the next thing you know I had a two-book publishing contract. I really didn’t see that coming. And since then everything has happened so fast that I haven’t had time to process it all.


Me: Do you want your Franki Amato mystery series to get adapted on a motion picture, since the book has got all the elements to turn it into a entertaining blockbuster Holly flick? And which Hollywood actress do you think will fit perfectly into Franki's shoes?

Traci: It would be fun to see Franki on film. And, in fact, a screenplay of Limoncello Yellow is in the works. But books undergo a lot of changes when they’re adapted for film, so I’m not sure the movie adaptation will be like the book. As for who I’d like to see cast as Franki, I’m not sure. But she needs to be a tall, spunky brunette with a sarcastic sense of humor!


Me: How is your normal writing day like? And how do you unwind yourself from the stress?

Traci: Like a lot of writers, I have a full-time day job. So, I have to write in my free time, and, unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of that. Typically, I wake up at three o’clock in the morning and write for a few hours before I leave for work at seven. And then I write as much as I can on weekends. It’s really hard, but I love writing, and I can’t imagine giving it up.


Me: What's next up on your writing sleeves? Can we expect more Franki Amato adventures? Please tell us briefly about it.

Traci: Absolutely! I wrote a short story about Franki called “Rosolio Red” for Cozy Christmas Capers that will be soon published as a standalone short story. And I just signed a contract for a third Franki Amato book called Amaretto Amber. It will come out November of this year (I hope).


Me: Thank you so much Traci for sparing time to have this interview session with me for my blog. I can only wish you luck in all your future endeavors.

Traci: Thank YOU, Aditi. I’m so thrilled to be on a blog in India. I hope to visit your country one day soon. And who knows, maybe I’ll even set a book there! ;)
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Traci's Bio:


Traci Andrighetti is the national bestselling author of the Franki Amato Mysteries. 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.









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