Autorentext

I started writing some years ago, when I was studying to become a Certified Jewish Storyteller. At the time I began writing my own original stories to tell to live audiences, along with my own versions of traditional tales. I had not known my Mother was Jewish when I was younger. I only found out in the last twenty years that she was from a hidden Jewish family who at pain of death, had to flee from persecution and the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal in the 1400s, 1500s and 1600s. And from Russia in abt 1700.   Some of my ancestral Jewish family in Venice claimed to be descended from King David, though there is no sure proof of this. In the 1500s and later they were court musicians and instrument builders in the Courts of Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth, where the family continued to play music for the Royal Court and the Globe Theater in London. Eventually their descendants settled in the American colonies, as early as 1609. I draw upon this once hidden ancestry and my stringed instrument building experiences in my writing. I am a trained classical Italian violin builder, and harp builder, designing, building and carving custom one-of-a-kind harps for forty-one years now. My creative endeavors over the years include having danced ballet and modern dance with local dance companies, as well as acting, dancing and singing in semi-professional musical and dramatic theater productions. . I live and write in Southwest Oregon, with my beautiful wife Laurie, and our two sweet girl dogs, Princess Jasmine, a Shih-tzu, and Bella, a Lhasa Apso. This book of stories was partially inspired by past life recalls I have had, as well as a near-death experience I experienced on Yom Kippur, before I found out I was Jewish by birth. Follow your Bliss and Live your Life in Joy. Glenn J. Hill gjhill@glennhillauthor.com www.glennhillauthor.com/ Facebook: Glenn J Hill Author Mountain Glen Publishing  Phoenix OR

Klappentext

In the artistic heart of Ashland, Oregon, where Shakespeare banners flutter above crowded galleries and musicians play beneath strings of lantern light, beauty can be dangerously deceptive. When celebrated sculptor Hadrian Kessler unveils his dazzling new gallery of Greco-Roman statuary during Ashland's First Friday Art Walk, retired Israeli antiquities investigator William Mills immediately senses something wrong beneath the polished marble surfaces. The sculptures are flawless. Too flawless. And when a mysterious death shocks the local arts community, William and his partner Carol Lindsey find themselves drawn into a labyrinth of forged antiquities, hidden vaults, stolen masterpieces, and secrets buried beneath Ashland's charming façade. But the deeper they dig, the stranger the mystery becomes. Ghostly piano notes echo through the old Ashland Co-Op Gallery next door. Wolfie-the gentle spirit of a gifted young pianist killed decades earlier in a tragic accident-seems desperate to warn them. Dante, the mischievous ghost cat haunting Beckworth Mansion, reacts with fear to hidden rooms beneath Kessler's villa filled with looted statues and dangerous secrets. Meanwhile, the Blue Lady ghost, Ophelia Beckworth, continues to haunt Lithia Park's fountain, and William's dreams of a woman running through the rain grow more vivid with every passing night. Someone was chasing her long ago. Someone may still be hiding the truth. As William's investigation places him behind bars for a murder he may not have committed, Carol must take the lead-navigating Ashland's eccentric artists, mysterious spiritualists, suspicious collectors, and colorful locals to uncover the truth before another death occurs. Filled with cozy charm, Shakespearean atmosphere, ghostly intrigue, delicious food, hidden history, and a slow-burning romance, A Sculpted Demise is the fourth installment in the beloved Ghostly Ashland Shakespeare Mysteries series. In Ashland, even the statues have secrets.