The world’s largest oil painting. A 400-year-old murder. A disembodied whisper: “Amore mio.” My love.
Nick and Julia O’Connor’s
dream trip to Venice collapses when a haunting voice reaches out to Nick from
Tintoretto’s Paradise, a monumental depiction of Heaven. Convinced his
delusions are the result of a concussion, Julia insists her husband see a
doctor, though Nick is adamant the voice was real.
Blacking out in the museum,
Nick flashes back to a life as a 16th century Venetian peasant swordsman. He
recalls precisely who the voice belongs to: Isabella Scalfini, a married
aristocrat he was tasked to seduce but with whom he instead found true love. A
love stolen from them hundreds of years prior.
She implores Nick to liberate
her from a powerful order of religious vigilantes who judge and sentence souls
to the canvas for eternity. Releasing Isabella also means unleashing thousands
of other imprisoned souls, all of which the order claims are evil.
As
infatuation with a possible hallucination clouds his commitment to a
present-day wife, Nick’s past self takes over. Wracked with guilt, he can no
longer allow Isabella to remain tormented, despite the consequences. He must
right an age-old wrong – destroy the painting and free his soul mate. But the
order will eradicate anyone who threatens their ethereal prison and their
control over Venice.
Trigger Warnings.
Violence, a rape scene, a torture scene.
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I survived a plane crash.
Well, it was more like a plane fender-bender, but still. I’ve traveled a great bit (forty countries, forty U.S. States, five continents) and have had some incredible trips, but this crash wasn’t even the culmination of the worst trip of my life.
I was returning from a business trip to New Delhi, on which I contracted dysentery. I had a connecting flight in Newark before finally returning to my home in Los Angeles and while we were on the tarmac waiting to take off, another plane hit us! Thankfully we weren’t in the air and nobody was hurt, but the damage was severe enough that both planes were grounded.
Six hours later, we finally took off in new planes. Still ill, I returned home to find my girlfriend at the time had broken up with me and rats had moved into my apartment. Not the greatest of trips, but it makes for a cool story!
I hitchhiked to Romania.
While doing a semester abroad in the city of Pécs in southern Hungary, I had been living on a budget of three dollars, which was actually enough for three meals, beers, and cigarettes.
Another American student and I learned we could stretch our dollar even further in Romania, where vodka and cigarettes were even cheaper. So, along with a Hungarian friend, the three of us decided to hitchhike to Romania.
After multiple rides, including being dropped off in the middle of nowhere and sleeping in the back of a nightclub, we finally made it to within a few miles of the border. The only problem? Nobody wanted to take these obviously American kids across. Finally, we were picked up by the cops, who, it turned out, just wanted to see U.S. passports. We ended up taking the bus back and spending much more than we ever expected to save, but it sure was a great adventure.
I’ve been in three movies.
At one point in my writing career, I was a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Being involved in the movies, you meet a lot of people and I was invited to be an extra on multiple occasions. I opted for three, all fantastic experiences. These were Point Doom, starring Ice-T (with whom I had a scene), Richard Grieco and Angie Everhart; Varsity Blues, with James Van Der Beek, Jon Voight, and a then-unknown Paul Walker; and Collateral, starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.
I was
a club dancer in Collateral in a major action scene. Tom Cruise shoots five
people and the place goes berserk. Prior to the shooting, Tom Cruise needed to
navigate the dancers. Due to the intricacies of the scene, director Michael
Mann needed to shoot it about ten times. And each time Tom had to bump into me
as he traversed the dance floor. (BTW, he’s a super nice guy and bought
everybody (at least a hundred people) dinner.)
I used to work for the Japanese government.
Prior to following my dream as a writer, I was an International Relations major with minors in Japanese and Political Science, on track to take the foreign service exam. My first job out of college was with the Japan External Trade Organization, a branch of the Japanese government’s version of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This was in New York (where I’m from). My job was to help American businesses from seventeen states in doing business with Japan.
I dabbled as an artist and musician.
As an artist, my medium was a mixed media collage. Specifically, I worked with money—actual money—creating images with U.S. currency. As a musician, I play guitar and sing. I’ve been in two bands and played live about fifty times.
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To learn more about The Prisoner of Paradise or to find purchase locations, visit the author's Website
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Rob Samborn
In addition to being a novelist, Rob Samborn is a screenwriter, entrepreneur, and avid traveler. He’s been to forty countries, lived in five of them, and studied nine languages. As a restless spirit who can’t remember the last time he was bored, Rob is on a quest to explore the intricacies of our world and try his hand at a multitude of crafts; he’s also an accomplished artist and musician, as well as a budding furniture maker. A native New Yorker who lived in Los Angeles for twenty years, he now makes his home in Denver with his wife, daughter, and dog.
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Thank you so much for hosting the blog tour for The Prisoner of Paradise. We really appreciate all that you do.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Mary Anne
The Coffee Pot Book Club
Thanks for hosting and sharing, Mary Ann!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure.
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