Straight Browsing from the Library: The Renaissance Club by Rachel Dacus

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Would you give up everything, even the time in which you live, to be with your soul mate? That’s the question my heroine, May Gold must answer in this time travel love story. And she has to answer it in three short weeks, on a tour of Italy. A college adjunct teacher, she often dreams about the subject of her master’s thesis—17th century sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini. In her fantasies, she’s in his arms, the wildly adored partner of the man whose passionate art invented the Baroque style. But in reality, May has just landed in Rome with her teaching colleagues and older boyfriend. She considers herself a precocious failure and yearns to unleash her passion and creative spirit. May finds she has to choose: stay in a safe but stagnant existence or take a risk.

READ AN EXCERPT

In Bernini’s Studio

That smile of his ought to be illegal. She was standing too close to him for a biographer. Nevertheless, she moved closer. “You’ve made him so noble. Really, he wasn’t this beautiful,” she pointed out. From his surprise, she gathered that he wasn’t used to having his work critiqued. Of course, he was Bernini. Only his patrons had the power to criticize his art, and they seemed to universally consider it fabulous. The matter of fidelity wasn’t an issue in his time the way it was in hers.

“I show his stature in his eyes and forehead,” he said. “I reveal the rest of his nature in the face below the nose, where I capture his fondness for feasting. And even that is beautiful.”

“Beauty in his fat jowls?”

He laughed. “They say he has expansive meals.” He ran a loving hand over the clay. “I captured his face when he was about to speak, so you can read his lively thought. Perhaps it was of mutton!”

They both laughed, and she said, “This king’s image is beautiful in your eyes and under your hands.”

“I tried to imagine what would move this man. You’re a poet. You must be able to feel it when the strings of your heart make a music that becomes a stream of light. You stand in that light and fold your hands. If you are sincere, truth comes as the body of an angel. A visitation.”

She stepped closer and bowed. “Cavaliere, you are my stream of light.”

He laughed and pulled her up. “I was simply answering your question.”

MEET THE AUTHOR

Rachel Dacus is the author of The Renaissance Club, a novel called “Enchanting, rich and romantic…a poetic journey through the folds of time.” Dacus’ book Gods of Water and Air is a collection of poetry, prose, and drama. Her other poetry collections are Earth Lessons and Femme au Chapeau. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, The Pedestal, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Her fourth poetry collection, Arabesque, is forthcoming in August 2018 from FutureCycle Press. Read more on her website: racheldacus.net. Follow on Twitter: @Rachel_Dacus.

Buy links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Renaissance-Club-Rachel-Dacus/dp/1946143421/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-renaissance-club-rachel-dacus/1127621372

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