.......Lynne Russell Books

2024-11-25T00:26:00.001-05:00

Who betrayed you in your past life? If you believe that the spirit and romance live on, you’ll love “STREGA Magic: The Spirit Never Dies” by Original CNN anchor Lynne Russell. Buy it at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, lynnerussell.com This year, give the gift of Magic!

3rd year New York medical student Annie Scott has lost herself in a world of reincarnation and treachery… and feminine Gifts passed down in her Old Country Italian family.

She’s always dreamed of becoming a doctor. But destiny - Destino - has other plans, as violence and treachery in her short life threaten to destroy everything. Her fiancé, a wealthy ego-centric lawyer, dismisses the urgent whispers that only she can hear in the night. They warn that time is short… but time for what?

When she admits he doesn’t love her, she throws a few things into a bag and starts driving. All the way to the calming waves and fresh salt air of the Massachusetts shore, where she crashes headlong into the Past! But also into new loves. One real.. another long dead.

Her life is so closely tied to the Past, that an Old Country tale of her ancestors runs concurrently in this book. It seems Annie isn’t the only woman with decisions to make. If she doesn’t make the right ones now, she’ll never be happy again.

If you like romantic drama steeped in history but with a sense of humor, you’ll love "STREGA MAGIC: THE SPIRIT NEVER DIES” by Original CNN anchor Lynne Russell. Buy yours at Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, LynneRussell.com

2024-10-04T14:56:00.004-04:00

"ATLANTA SATURDAY BOOK SIGNING CANCELED! LYNNE'S ALTER-EGO PJ SANTINI THREATENS TO SHOW UP ALONE! Of course she can't, because PJ and her penchant for dangerous men, high heels and dark chocolate are only fictional... or are they? Maybe her whole HELL ON HEELS series is real!"

Seriously, I'm very disappointed to miss seeing you all. I was looking forward to sharing my latest book,

STREGA - MAGIC: THE SPIRIT NEVER DIES. It's historical fiction with a sense of humor.

Reincarnation, love, treachery, hope... we’ve all been there. Please order your copy at Amazon/Barnes & Noble. Reviews have been terrific!

2024-09-21T16:24:00.002-04:00

Book Signing Coming Up!

See you SATURDAY OCTOBER 5, 2024 at the iconic DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL in ATLANTA, GEORGIA!

I’ll be hanging out at Booth 128 along with my Alter Ego, romantic crime fiction heroine PJ SANTINI, and all of her HELL ON HEELS series books.

We’ll also bring my latest book, STREGA. Historical fiction with a sense of humor.

Reincarnation, love, treachery, hope... we’ve all been there. Available on Amazon/Barnes & Noble. (Details in the post below.) Reviews have been terrific, including this one from BookLife Prize, Publishers Weekly:

“Readers will be swept

into the romance -

and darkness”

- BookLife Prize, Publishers Weekly

Rated 9.75 out of 10

Please stop by and say Hi! I'll be signing books and getting to know my readers. And because PJ Santini has a weakness for dangerous men, high heels and dark chocolate, the least I can do is get you started with the dark chocolate!

This historically largest independent book festival in the United States is finally returning to the outdoors, bringing our renewed opportunity to get to know each other. This is very exciting, and long overdue.

See you on Saturday October 5, 2024, 10AM to 5PM at the Decatur Book Festival in metro Atlanta, Georgia.

2021-10-31T17:05:00.015-04:00

Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple

The Witching Hour Is Here

Strega

Magic: The Spirit Never Dies

By Lynne Russell

“I was born on the white November day the Baptismal font cracked. Big, and right down the middle. Not a good sign in the Italian immigrant stronghold of Ocean County, New Jersey. Six weeks later, the second they wrapped up the christening my Godfather - running late for a meeting at an unspecified location - gently kissed my forehead and signaled to the bouncer waiting at the door to ‘Git the friggin cah stahted.’ And that’s the good part.” - Annie

STREGA - Magic: The Spirit Never Dies is a rich novel from acclaimed storyteller Lynne Russell, set along the shores of modern day Massachusetts and in the Old Country of southern Italy, where the hereditary witchcraft of Benevento province is legendary. Indeed, Strega means witch in Italian. Steeped in history but with a sense of humor, this is a tale of Reincarnation, Family, Love, Hope. About the Joy we can pull out of suffering. About Feminine Sovereignty and Gifts passed down through the ages. And about a certain magical liquore enjoyed to this very day, and the importance of sharing it with your true other half.

Angela Scotti (Annie) is a third-year medical student very near to achieving her dream of becoming a healer. But destiny, Destino, has other plans for her. Tragedies in her short life refuse to give her peace. Worse, her fiancé, a successful New York divorce lawyer, gives no credence to the urgent whispers she has begun to hear in the night. They swirl around her and warn that the clock is ticking, that the time is near, but they never say what she should do. Even worse, in her hospital work her mentor has become her enemy, and she faces the fight alone.

This beautifully written, cinematic account of the women who preceded Annie moves smoothly through Italy of 1617 and 1899. Today, a prisoner of her unsettled present, Annie flees to the calming waves and fresh salt air of the coast of Massachusetts. Without warning she runs headlong into the frightening Past, a past that threatens to destroy her. Yet she finds hope, and love, and herself in the most unlikely places. Will she recognize it in time?

(End of Prologue) “The Stakes”

You get the idea about my family. I’ve worried over whether I should reveal more of it, the really serious stuff. Mere suggestions of our past have breathed damaging new life into secrets that would have been better left untouched.

But I’ll take the risk and let you be the judge. What you learn about feminine sovereignty and strength and self-discipline - whichever gender field you’re playing on - can change your life forever.

It all goes back to the Old Country… to a faerie tale that happens to be true.

Santa Maria del Sannio, 1617

“The first witch was as beautiful as you. Men loved her and women hated her. She was all women.”

At some point in her earliest years, every little girl in my family turns a bewildered cheek into the softness of her pillow as she’s tucked in at night. She closes her wonder-filled eyes to unpuzzle this riddle, reassured by the gentle feminine voice beside her bed that it is the truth and that in time she will understand. Then this tender sleeping beauty is whispered to, as she sinks into slumber.

“Remember this: the power and the knowledge that rest in your breast have been handed down from the ancient goddesses… the Lifegivers. They rule over Harmony and Fertility and Balance.

“But men have sought to erase their influence from the world. They have been violent. And almost successful.”

“Almost?” sleepy little voices ask.

“The harder men have tried to write their own history, the better women have learned to play their own game. Sharing their truths from memory, and whispering among themselves about things that happened long before… and things that happened just yesterday.”

“But what if the men found out?”

“Their violence was no match for our passion and for the way Nature favors us. So what, if we were the ones minding the children and doing the cleaning? We love our babies. As for cleaning, you can do a lot more with a broom than sweep, you know.”

My family has been keeping first-hand score of this historical tug-of-war for centuries. It hasn’t been dull.

It has been dangerous.

Imagine you’re in magnificent Southern Italy in very much simpler times. The year is 1617, in the impoverished village of Santa Maria del Sannio, in the fertile hills of the region of Campania, in the province of Benevento.

Breathe deeply and smell the fresh earth. Take your time. Fill your lungs with the clean, clear air that bathes this land between the Tyrrhenian Sea, part of the Mediterranean to the west, and the Aegean Sea to the east. You are alone in the sun. You feel content and time is unimportant, as you watch filmy clouds drift across the sky.

Among these same ancient olive groves and fragrant herb farms two hundred years later, this place will become famous as a name is given to one of its secret treasures: a fine golden liquore the color of the sun. It is an herbal liquid that warms you and transports you to another world where everything is possible.

Even today it’s said that if a man and a woman drink this powerful love potion, they are united forever. It’s called Strega, which in Italian means sorceress, after the fabled witches of Benevento, so powerful was their magic.

Family records show this also was the birthplace of my great, great, great-grandmother who was called Angela, which in Italian means angel. Unfortunately, not everybody thought so.

Reprinted from STREGA - Magic:The Spirit Never Dies by Lynne Russell. Copyright©2021 Lynne Russell. All rights reserved. This excerpt or any parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

At Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple Books and the Purchase Books link, above.

PJ3: LOVE HEELS! The TV news business can be murder

2021-06-11T17:55:00.006-04:00

Amazon, Kobo, B&N

OUR GIRL PJ SANTINI IS BACK!

Well, that was one helluva COVID winter, wasn’t it? I hope you’re feeling better about things now. So much happened, yet we also can be thankful for so much.

While we were napping, PJ Santini was having adventures all over the place. They’re documented in the third book of the PJ Santini series, LOVE HEELS! The TV news business can be murder.

So much good stuff happens in this book, I was going to name it something else. Because amid the homicide investigations and human duplicity and suspicion and betrayal, love shows up in the most unlikely ways. Between us, I was going to call it LOVE HEALS! But PJ intervened:

“Are you nuts?” she said to me in between glasses of wine (hers and mine) one night when I was writing, hunkered down by the fireplace in a log house on the side of a mountain. “You can’t do that! People expect me to be kickass, not sentimental!”

“But you’re Italian,” I told her, “Sicilian, in fact, which is even more hardcore. Sentimentality is in your DNA.”

“Do you want me to tell readers about the time you blew the windshield out of a rental car?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” she said, pulling at the thong panties I make her wear under a corset.

“But I created you. You’re a character in a book. I can do whatever I want.”

“Who gets more fan mail, me or you? You need me, skinny girl.”

“You have a point. But...” I had to know why she was so upset. “Is it because you can’t breathe in the corset and I’ve given you a big butt?”

“You also gave me 38DD’s. More than you’ve got. Capice?”

“Not true.” I could not lose this argument. “If you don’t watch your words, I’ll give you something you never wanted, a Meaningful Domestic Relationship.”

“And I’ll give you a pregnant heroine.”

Oh god, no. “Okay, you win. It’s Love Heels!”

Here’s where PJ3 picks up

PJ Santini, private investigator and TV news reporter, is dusting off her Louboutin stilettos after a 2 a.m. cemetery shootout in Buffalo, NY. Already, her tanned, toned PI boss’s new society divorce case is turning into a homicide investigation. It may kill her but it won’t get in the way of Chianti and pasta. Ma cooks. Pop, a retired cop, works Cold Cases in the basement between meals. Her Sicilian Nonna, whose specialty is revenge, is jilted by her lover and invents Bidet therapy. Her “connected” cousin, Sandro “The Eel” DiLeo, needs a favor.

What could go wrong?

2019-09-03T19:33:00.000-04:00

Good Times!

Thanks For Stopping By!

What a great time over Labor Day Weekend at the huge AJC Decatur Book Festival in Atlanta!

Thank you for lovin’ our gal PJ SANTINI and picking up your signed copies of the first two novels in the PJ Santini series,

Heels Of Fortune and Hell On Heels.

One dedicated reader even brought her copy of my first book, How To Win Friends, Kick Ass and Influence People (1999 St. Martin’s Press), and asked that I sign it!

A big thank you to my thoughtful husband, Chuck de Caro, for his unwavering support and for showing up with a truckload of gold balloons and - not one but -TWO bigger-than-life size Lynne standup cutouts! The other Me’s are even sporting thigh holsters. And Chuck provided bottles of chilled Prosecco to keep the mood bubbly, over those two long, hot and muggy days of meeting readers, signing books, sharing a lot of laughing. As you can see by the happy expression on my author friend Debby Woods’s face, it worked! Bubbly R Us!

Until the next one, remember we can stay in touch via this blog

and through

Facebook: Lynne Russell Books

Twitter: Lynne Russell Books

@books_russell

Instagram: Lynne Russell Books

ly.nne6011

Thanks again!

2019-08-30T08:39:00.000-04:00

CALENDAR NOTE: Join Me THIS WEEKEND At BOOTH 411.

The DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL in ATLANTA, the largest independent US book festival!

SAT Aug 31: 10AM-6PM

SUN Sept 1: Noon-6PM.

Outdoors, free admission! It will be such fun on Labor Day weekend!

www.decaturbookfestival.com

2019-08-16T18:04:00.003-04:00

EVERYBODY HAS A FANTASY

WHAT’S YOURS?

“George Clooney was a shoe salesman, kneeling at my feet. In my fantasy...”

-PJ SANTINI, Hell On Heels, the new first book of my PJ Santini Series

Our girl PJ Santini has lots of fantasies. Sometimes they keep her alive, when they reflect reality and she imagines how badly a private investigative job could turn out. That’s when they jump-start her brain into Fight-or-Flight, and she tries everything she can think of. Sometimes her fantasies collide with stressful reality, causing her to stop thinking of the present altogether and imagine herself down to a size 6 and light as a feather, with plenty of leeway to throw down a bowlful of macaroni and cheese soup followed by a good-size piece of New York cheesecake, just to keep up her strength.

Then there are the shoe dreams... and George Clooney, who is cradling her bare foot in his hot hands. He never really says anything, preferring to shoot her meaningful glances with his moony eyes. Her subconscious is beginning to reason that if he isn’t going to talk, his tongue won’t mind running some moisture along her instep....

MEN INVENTED FANTASY

What’s that? Women are too given to living in a fantasy world? PJ and I have one word for you: Playboy. At this point, I’m thinking of a fun piece I wrote for one of Jeff Cohen’s Playboy Newsstand Specials called Body Language.

Have a good day.

The Safest Book Store In Town!

2019-07-21T16:01:00.000-04:00

I would like to thank Tall Tales Books in Atlanta, an honest-to-goodness, 40-year-old book store dedicated to aficionados of the written word (and our thanks to its camera shy owner Rebekah!) for hosting the book signing party for the first two PJ SANTINI SERIES novels, HELL ON HEELS and HEELS OF FORTUNE, yesterday!

Surprise guests included my 1st Choi Kwang Do instructor, 8th degree Grandmaster Marshall Pereira, and 6th degree Master Susan Whitfield. I am happy to report that during that period of time not a single item was stolen from the store!

And CNN was there - Classic CNN, as anchor Toria Tolley pronounced when she blew in and saw director D’Antonio Dixon, who had brought his tripod/camera. (Does that count as three guests? Probably not, since the tripod didn’t eat any cookies.)

We also were joined by brilliant photographer Claude Wegscheider; physician to the stars James Kinahan; and the female whose combustible combination of creativity and shrewd business woman, Renate Stender Kinahan, established the original two Café Intermezzos In Atlanta.

Thank you for coming, everyone!

I’ll be on the road and posting more information as we go.

And of course there will be the largest independent book festival in the United States over Labor Day weekend:

The AJC Decatur Book Festival

Come for the Street Fair!

See you at BOOTH 411 !

Saturday August 31, 10am–6pm
Sunday September 1, 12pm–6pm.

2019-07-11T14:43:00.000-04:00

www.Cosmopolitan.co.uk

Brazilians vs Nails.
Where to put your money.

“One spa waiting room said “Nails”, the other said “Brazilians”. Clients on the “Brazilians” side looked a lot happier. My guess is it’s because 99% of them were getting laid. Just a theory.”

-PJ SANTINI, #HeelsOfFortune, the new second book of the #PJSantiniSeries

*******************

In Atlanta This Weekend?

It’s a date! Lynne Russell will be at

Tall Tales Books

2 PM, Saturday July 20, 2019

for a PJ Santini Series book signing!

Tall Tales Books, in the Toco Hills Shopping Center, 2105 LaVista Rd NE, near Emory and the CDC

See you there!

2019-06-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

ATLANTA BOOK SIGNING!

Save the date! Saturday July 20 at 2 PM

Atlanta’s classic Tall Tales Books

2105 Lavista Rd NE, Atlanta, GA.

It will be such fun to meet fans of Hell On Heels and Heels Of Fortune! PJ Santini fans tend to share certain aspects of PJs wacky world ... dangerous men, an irresistible passion for shoes, curiosity about things better left alone, a secret pair of “fat“ jeans in the closet, a knack for thinking of almost any food as comfort food... and relatives who may or may not be rational at any given moment. Then there’s the TV News business, which really can be murder.

So mark your calendar, and let’s get together. The third Saturday in July! See you then.

2019-06-04T11:36:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I buy wine just for the label, like #Cat’sPeeOnAGooseberryBush, then I take off the label and have no idea what the #MysteryWine is.
-#PJ SANTINI, #HeelsOfFortune, the new 2nd book of the #PJSantiniSeries

Dear Graduate: Life in a few words.

2019-05-29T13:00:00.000-04:00

It’s the time of year when lots of advice is handed out in graduation speeches. Flowery sentences and tortured paragraphs. I can’t remember a damn word of mine. Which is why, when I address a graduating class, I like to keep it short - listening to anybody for longer than twenty minutes puts me to sleep, even if I’m the one doing the talking. And I have concluded that the absolute best, most honest, most helpful bottom line to deliver is always the same. It’s a 60-second lifesaver to throw to every student, one that respects, protects and celebrates each individual’s abilities and unique gifts. Here it is:

*As you go through your life, be true to yourself. No one knows as much about you as you do.
*Do no intentional harm. And remember,
*You are what you think.
We live in our heads. There are fancier ways of saying it, and lots of expensive research about it,
but the truth is you create your own day. No one is in there but you.
*Find your bliss.
Your bliss is the happy thing that makes you forget, even for a moment, everything else.
(For me, it’s the sound of my hockey skates on the ice. Never mind that when I fall it takes four
people to get me up.)
*Keep your style.
Life throws you curves. People tell you how, when, where, and what you should be. Don’t let it
change the way you celebrate your own style. The way you feel about yourself will always affect
the way you feel about others.
*Nurture your mind. Feed it, challenge it every day. People don’t stop learning because they get old;
they get old because they stop learning. (Grandmaster Pereira)
Nurture your body. Give it what it needs and respect it.
Nurture your spirit. Give it space and quiet. It supports those two off-the-chain entities just
above, and will outlast them.

That’s it. If someone had told me this at graduation, I’d remember more than the fact that Susan Russell was sitting on my left and some kid whose last name began with an S was on my right. And that my girlfriend’s party was canceled by her father the cop. After he bailed her out.

2019-05-28T14:44:00.000-04:00

Ah, the common threads women share. Or is it threats. Some actually consider them in advance (don’t feel bad, I didn’t either!) But when you’re writing fiction, you can give your heroine the benefit of your own real-life experience. Will PJ Santini buy me a beer for it, or lob me a gift card? Probably not. We all know she’s hanging on by her fingernails.

“When I fantasize about a possible future with him, I picture myself a year down the road, 7 months pregnant, in a pink terry cloth robe and fuzzy scuffs in a laundry room, spot-cleaning his Jockeys. I’m allergic to that.”

-#PJ SANTINI, #HeelsOfFortune

2019-05-21T02:25:00.000-04:00

Am I the only woman who names her car?! I’ve done it for years, and it gets lots of unintended laughs, mostly from guys. You can only imagine what they say about “ Sweet Boy”. But I like it well enough to share with my alter ego, PJ Santini. After all, women have to stick together…

“Hi Sweet Boy, I crooned to the car, inhaling deeply of downtown #Buffalo’s rich exhaust. Look what we have!”

(Guess what it is!)

-PJ SANTINI, #HellOnHeels, the new first book of the #PJSantiniSeries

2019-05-16T19:48:00.000-04:00

Two hairy guys! My bear was fascinated last night, watching the #SanJoseSharks take on the #StLouisBlues in game 3 of the NHL western conference #StanleyCupPlayoffs2019, because the Sharks’ #JoeThornton has as much hair as Hockey Bear has!

Humor, baby, humor

2019-05-02T13:29:00.002-04:00

Humor is one of the most important things in a good relationship! You can fight like cats and dogs, but be sure you wind up laughing. My husband even steals the Mel Brooks punchline, below. It may be completely off our subject, but it works every time.

Case in point: famous story about comedic genius Mel Brooks and his actress wife Anne Bancroft. Brooks, Jewish. Bancroft, Italian. On television talk shows, he laughed and called her an Italian fruitcake. “ You don't mess with those!”

The famous story goes that they were having a heated argument. So heated, that she gave him a shove. He shoved her back.

At that, she drew herself to her full height, threw her head back, and with even voice declared , “How dare you! My body is my instrument!”

To which he replied, “Oh yeah? Let’s hear Begin the Beguine!”

2019-03-26T03:44:00.000-04:00

Lightning bolt. “ Oh no no no! Did you wear a condom? Did you? “
“Oops,” he grinned, “it sort of took us both by surprise, didn’t it. It’ll be OK Janice, really. God smiles down on women who fuck before 8:30 Eastern.”

HELL ON HEELS 👠
PJ TRIVIA FACT: PJ Santini goes by Janice because her real name is pure Italian linguistic pandemonium.