Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: Buscafusco


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BUSCAFUSCO: Saints & Witches

santi e fattucchiere cover 2 smallI have just completed a story called BUSCAFUSCO: Saints & Witches, that was financed through a crowdfunding by my Italian readers.
Yes, it is in Italian.
It was a wild ride, and I’m pretty spent at the moment.
And yet, it would be fun to be able to translate and adapt it in time for Halloween. But I can’t really. Apart from the fact that it would be a rush job, the pact with the sponsors of my crowdfunding is that I will not publish the story until the 15th of September 2018.
So I might do it in English too for Halloween 2018.

Which leaves me with another problem: what could I do for Halloween this year?
Maybe an Aculeo & Amunet short, you say.
Or give it a try and finally launch that new series about a supernatural detective?

Ah, decisions, decisions!


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Buscafusco: Ghosts & Shadows

Winter in the wine hills of Monferrato is as beautiful as it is cold.

In the early days of the year, Buscafusco is making end meets by shoveling snow out of other people’s driveways.
But on New Year’s Eve, a boy vanished on his way to the new year party.
And old ghosts are stirring in the old, dark, cursed Villa Brichetto.
Who you gonna call?

BUSCAFUSCO: Ghosts & Shadows is out now, on Amazon.


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Buscafusco is (almost) back

buscafusco ghosts & shadows smallAnd with an extreme delay, the second BUSCAFUSCO story is done, and is currently being lovingly manipulated by Mr Bezos’ gnomes.

This one is called Ghosts & Shadows, and is set during the Montferrat Winter – following the Autumn exploits of the first story in the series.
The idea is to do four volumes, covering four seasons – the next one therefore should be Spring.

As in Women & Children, once again Buscafusco will be tackling two cases at the same time – a kidnapping and a haunted house. Continue reading →


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Wine, sex and folk horror (and other things)

Despite the general sleepiness that comes with Spring, I’m trying to clear my desk of my backlog of stories, articles and translations I need to deliver to my clients, and in the meantime I’m trying to work on a pair of submissions and a couple of self-published things.
The new Buscafusco story is 75% done, and I’d like to nail its box shut by the end of the month.
acheron_the__ministry_of_thunderAlso, the Dean Wesley Smith book Writing a Novel in Seven Days is making me itchy to try. As I mentioned, I did it once already, and the novel I wrote in eight days later became The Ministry of Thunder, of which I am well pleased, as are my readers (eight 5-star reviews! hooray!)
Now I’m wondering if it would be feasible to try and do a 42.000 words story about Aculeo & Amunet.
And then there is the bit about local traditions and folk horror. About six months ago I promised a friend a novel a-la Dan Brown to stimulate interest in the territory and lure tourists in these hills. Part of that project became the Buscafusco series, but the idea of a horror story set in the Piedmontese vineyards sounds more attractive every day. And as per original plan, might make enough people curious to give a minimal boost to local tourism.
Now, as I think I mentioned, the local spook-du-jour are the masche sort of witches/hags of peasant tradition – and my friend Fabrizio Borgio is an expert on the subject.
BUT, in a twist of research madness, I decided to look at another tradition that might provide ample food for stories… even Aculeo & Amunet stories.
Because this is a wine country, and wine means Dionysus. Continue reading →


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BUSCAFUSCO: Women & Children

And so the first BUSCAFUSCO story is out.
It’s called BUSCAFUSCO: Women & Children, and you can get it, DRM-free, through Amazon – just click on the links.
It’s 12.000 words story, sort of a warm-up run, something I did in two days trying to get the recurring characters on the page, getting a first taste of the setting, and testing what I’d like to use as a typical story structure for the series, having my character tackle two different and unrelated “cases” at the same time.

All in all, I had quite some fun writing this story, and barring accidents I will try and do another as soon as possible, treating this as a T V series, with two episodes – at least – per month.

buscafusco-women-and-children-small

I hope you’ll enjoy BUSCAFUSCO: Women & Children – please leave a review on your review website of choice, and let me know what you think. This is not just vanity, it’s actually what I need to fine-tune my stories.
Cheers!


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Introducing BUSCAFUSCO, a tough guy for the wine country

There’s been a project I’ve been sitting on for months now, and today I decided to give it a spin – the idea being writing a story in one day, and then clean it up, put a cover on it and then load it up in Amazon, and see what happens.
Work with pulp speed and pulp standards, to tell pulp stories.

So I did it.
I started this morning at 9.30.
It is now 5.30 pm as I am writing this, and I have 9000 words down, and about half as many still to go. And it seems to be working.
So, to give myself that extra push, I’m announcing it here straight away, and I’m also giving you a short behind-the-scenes and a cover reveal.
I hope you are interested. Continue reading →