BLAST, BLITZ, PROMOS, REVEALS, & TOURS . . . : SPOTLIGHT Audio - CONTEMPORARY - PAINTING OF SORROW by Virginia Winters Narrator: Virginia Ferguson

Audiobook Blog Tour: Painting of Sorrow by Virginia Winters

PAINTING OF SORROW
by Virginia Winters
Narrator: Virginia Ferguson
Length: 7 hours and 36 minutes
Publisher: Virginia Winters
Released: April 18th 2019
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

The painting and the woman, both hiding in plain sight. And a killer who targets both.

Sarah Downing, an art conservator hiding in witness protection, identifies a lost masterpiece by Caravaggio. History says it burned in WWII Berlin, but here it is, on her easel.

Someone betrays Sarah - an agent, a friend? Soon she is fighting to save the painting and herself.

What Sarah does next sends her from Kingston to Italy to rural Ontario in her desperate attempt to survive, save the Caravaggio and rebuild her life.

By the author of the exciting suspense series, Dangerous Journeys.

Virginia Winters is a writer and retired paediatrician who lives in Lindsay, Ontario. She was born in Arnprior, Ontario and educated at Queen's University. Her first novel, Murderous Roots, was published by Cambridge Books, an imprint of Write Words Inc, of Cambridge, Maryland, USA.in 2008. Four more novels in the Dangerous Journeys series followed: The Facepainter Murders, 2009 No Motive for Murder, 2012 The Child on the Terrace, 2015 The Jewelled Egg Murders, 2017 The Ice Storm Murders is planned for summer 2019 Painting of Sorrow, the first book in a new series, A Deadly Art Mystery, appeared in 2018. A Superior Crime and other stories, was published in 2018 as well. She also writes short stories which have been published by various on-line and print publications. The latest, Rain, was published in Tales of the Mysterious, an anthology from Red Tuque Books, 2015. A short story, The Accounting, was published in Criminoil, Dark Stories from the Wood Buffalo from Carrick Publishing. She is a member of the Canadian Author's Association, The Writer's Community of Durham Region, Writers Union of Canada

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Q&A with Author Virginia Winters

Was a possible audiobook recording something you were conscious of while writing?
- No, I wasn’t thinking about audiobooks at all until a friend and I were talking and she mentioned how much she liked listening on her car radio as she commuted. She’s read all of mine and suggested I try it out.
How did you select your narrator?
- I worked with ACX, looking for an experienced narrator who was an actor and could give life to my characters.
How closely did you work with your narrator before and during the recording process?
- I worked very closely with the narrator. She recorded chapter by chapter and I corrected as we went along.
Did you give them any pronunciation tips or special insight into the characters?
- As she is an American based in Australia and my characters range from American to British to Canadian to Italian, some of the words were unfamiliar to her so I did give a few pointers about pronunciation.
Were there any real life inspirations behind your writing?
- The plot revolves around a mystery concerning the loss of many artworks in a fire in Berlin in the closing days of WWII. Although there is no suggestion in historical accounts that the paintings were stolen, not burned,I imagined that one had survived and ended up on my character’s easel for conservation.
What kind of books do you write?
- Women's Crime Fiction and Suspense with a bit of romance     
What makes your writing stand out from the crowd?
- I weave my plots around places I have visited. The imaginary landscape of my first two books contains elements from my childhood home, and the third, Bermuda, where some of my family lives. One of my books, The Child on the Terrace is set in Spain. Painting of Sorrow includes scenes set in Kingston, Ontario where I went to medical school, Paris, Venice and the Ottawa Valley area of Ontario where I grew up.
     What is the hardest part of writing - for you?
- Getting the words right. Who said that? Hemingway? But that's the hardest.
  What advice would you have for other writers?
- Practice the craft every day. Read widely within and outside your genre. If you want to make an audiobook, study the options, and prepare to work closely with the narrator.    
What's your next step?
- I’m finishing book 6 in my Dangerous Journeys series and working on marketing the audiobook of Painting of Sorrow. Next on the list is Book 2 of my Deadly Arts series.

I work mostly on stage, soap operas, commercials, audio books, teaching English, English as a Second Language, Drama to high school students. For two decades, I lived in Sydney, working as a professional actor and teacher and since 2001 have mainly taught high school and attended Terence McGovern’s Actor’s Studio Workshop in San Francisco where I began recording audio books with acx.com using an American and English accent.