The memory of a thousand caresses flooded over her.—Budapest Romance, Rozsa Gaston

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Budapest, Cafe Gerbeaud, eBooks, fiction online, fitness, Gellert Hotel, Hungary, Kindle, pleasure, promotion, publishing, pursuit of pleasure, relationships, romance, self-discovery, self-esteem, seo, spa, spa baths, spa culture, Szechenyi Baths, travel

Budapest Romance comes out November 17, 2014, darling readers. My latest book is a contemporary romance. Set in Budapest, it’s the story of an American woman meeting a Dutchman at a thermal bath spa hotel. Ready to help me decide on the cover?

Let’s go to Budapest and soak in this mineralized pool at the Gellert Hotel Spa while we consider cover choices.

Hot pink or light pink? Big title font or smaller title font? Interested to review and advance copy and send me your review to be posted on launch day in a place of honor? Here’s the story:

When Kati Dunai travels to Budapest to settle her father’s estate, the last thing on her mind is the pursuit of pleasure. She’s a busy international conference planner, her life rooted in Manhattan.

But from the moment she sets foot in the city of her father’s youth, it’s pleasure that pursues her. At the thermal bath spa hotel where she’s staying, she meets a Dutchman who reminds her of Béla Dunai, a Hungarian refugee who fled his homeland shortly after its 1956 revolution.

Jan Klassen is in Budapest to mend from a motorcycle accident. His scars have healed on the outside, but inside, he cannot forgive himself for the consequences his son now lives with forever.

Jan has never met a woman like Kati before. Her blend of New England restraint with gypsy spirit captivates him. While Jan introduces Kati to Budapest’s leisurely pace of life, Kati introduces Jan to her own leisurely pace of sensual exploration as their attraction to each other grows over six magical days.

When Kati returns to New York, their relationship continues. But it’s not just an ocean that separates them. Kati’s corporate job with lots of travel is the antithesis of the slow-paced pleasures she enjoyed in her father’s favorite city, one of Europe’s crown jewels.

Which will Kati put first—her new career or her new love; a man who reminds her of the father she never fully understood? And is it the Hungarian pleasure-loving side of herself that she really needs to understand before she can offer her heart to the man who has awakened her to who she truly is?

Rainy day in Paris’s shades of gray

Now darlings, if you really want to enjoy a book that’s already out there, take a trip to Paris without the airfare with Paris Adieu.

And if you want to be part of the final design and advance review team for Budapest Romance, send me your thoughts on cover design choice or request for advance review copy to rgaston@optonline.net.

One last thing, darling reader—Don’t forget to do something fun today. Just for yourself.

Stay playful.

Rozsa Gaston

 

 

 

 

With his quicksilver intellect he’d be at the end of my own story before I’d even turned the page. -Rozsa Gaston, Black is Not a Color

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1956, Black is Not a Color, book signing Doncaster Boutique, Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones' Diary, Carrie Bradshaw, fiction, Greenwich authors, Hungarian, Hungarian uprising, Hungary, local authors, Paris Adieu, Rozsa Gaston, Sex and the City, Translyvanian, Transylvania

Local author Gaston looks to her own life as genesis of new novel

 By Ken Borsuk on May 23, 2014 in Around Town, Community

Many authors, when looking for subjects of the most emotional value, turn inward to their own lives as a jumping off point. And that’s just what Greenwich’s Rozsa Gaston has done in her latest novel.

In Black Is Not A Color (Unless Worn By A Blonde), Ms. Gaston writes of a young woman reconnecting with her father after many years of estrangement. In this story, Ava Fodor is a woman with a thriving career and a budding new romance who was not raised by her father only to find herself having to take care of him over the course of the final year of his life. Despite not knowing her father, and having all the resentment and confusion that comes with that, Ava finds herself drawn to the eccentric Transylvanian/Hungarian man with his passion and zest for life even as it slips away.

“It doesn’t start that way, but this is a book that ends up being about elder care,” Ms. Gaston told the Post in an interview last week. “That’s not a very sexy subject, but it is an extremely topical one and this is definitely a book for Baby Boomers to read and also for those younger than Baby Boomers who are going to be facing this down the line. This is about caring for an aging parent who didn’t raise you as a child. That changes the conversation. Her relationship with her father is she’s just discovering him for the first time as a 30-year-old woman and he’s from a completely different culture.”

Ms. Gaston indeed drew from her own relationship with her father for the book but only in a loose way. It might be the genesis for the story, but it quickly goes in its own direction.

“My father was a Hungarian/Transylvanian refugee from the 1956 Hungarian uprising and I did not get to know him until I was older,” Ms. Gaston said. “I met him when I was about 16 and I wanted to work through feelings about our relationship. Writing the book ended up being a wonderful eye opener for me to realize how much my father actually did give me and how satisfying it was for me that when he did die I did the right thing. I might not have done the best job of doing the right thing, but I knew I did the right thing. I wanted to share that journey and writing this book allowed me to develop a deeper appreciation for my father.”

In the book, while Ava finds herself trying to relate to someone she doesn’t know and who comes from an entirely different cultural frame of mind than she has, she also has to struggle with the feelings of abandonment she has always had toward her father while finding herself drawn to him and his unique style. The more she learns about him the more she relates to her father which makes things even more difficult and that’s before life further complicates her romance…but to find out more you’re going to have to read the book which is available at Amazon.com and can also be ordered from Rozsagaston.com.

“The great thing about this book is that there’s progress between Ava and her father and the reason there’s progress is that her father is very forgiving,” Ms. Gaston said. “He didn’t parent her and she’s his only child so he didn’t parent anyone and he knows he was not a father at all. So he forgives her for whatever she says to him and how she acts toward him. He just wants to get to know her because he does love her and always has loved her.”

This book, which was first released in March, is a sequel to Paris Adieu, which had Ava living as an au pair coming of age in Paris. The romance between Ava and Pierre that began in the first book is a major theme in this new book. Ms. Gaston is quick to compare her lead character to widely known characters like Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City in that she’s no saint and can be a complicated person, but is someone readers want to root for.

“As soon as I finished Paris Adieu, I realized that Ava took on a life of her own and that I owed it to her to continue her story,” Ms. Gaston said. “And I owe it to her now to also continue her story through another book if not more.”

That book is still in the planning stages but Ms. Gaston is eager to get to work. A driven writer with several books to her name, Ms. Gaston said she loves to think ahead. Her next book, Sense of Touch, is inspired by the famed The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the Cluny Museum in Paris. No one has ever definitively sourced who the women are in those tapestries, which date back to the 1490’s, and this story is a historical fiction exploring that mystery.

However that story might have to wait until 2015 as Ms. Gaston is planning on having her sequel to Black Is Not A Color done by the fall.

“I can’t stop and I don’t want to,” Ms. Gaston said. “The projects keep coming to me one after the other.”

But she will stop long enough to sign copies of her book this week. Tomorrow, May 23, from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Doncaster pop up boutique at 219 East Putnam Avenue in Cos Cob, Ms. Gaston will be on hand for a book signing. Details below.

 

 

“I’ve known perfectly well, for a long time, that I have an irrational heart. But knowing it doesn’t stop me in the least.”~Colette

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aging parents, career, chicken paprikash, contemporary romance, culture, dating, elder care, Elizabeth Taylor, Fellini, free book, Hungarian culture, Hungary, Jackie Onassis, Judith Krantz, New York, personal growth, romance, Scruples, self-discovery, United Nations, women's issues, Yale

“When my father said black is not a color unless it’s worn by a blonde, he wasn’t just talking about the color black or women who were blonde. He was talking about the animus inside the packaging—the spirit inside the body, the woman inside the dress.”—Rozsa Gaston, Black is Not a Color

When Ava Fodor returns to New York from Paris, she leaves behind her budding romance with Pierre and turns her attention to another man: Zsolt Fodor, her father. He’s a penniless Hungarian poet transplanted to New York in the wake of the failed 1956 Hungarian uprising. Raised by her New England grandparents, Ava barely knows him. Dramatic, effusive, emotional, he’s everything her grandmother warned her against. Yet his crazy conversation fascinates her. His chicken paprikash isn’t bad either.

Pierre’s pull draws Ava back to France, to the medieval walled city of Carcassonne. There, his tender care of his ailing mother awakens Ava to something lacking in herself. Unless she finds it, she can’t give him her heart.

When her father has a heart attack, Ava is thrust into a caregiver role, looking after a man who never looked after her. She’s terrible at it. So was her father, so he forgives her. But can she forgive him? Until she learns to love the man she has every reason to abandon in his hour of need, she can’t move on. Only her father can show her the way. But will she let him? And if she can, will it be too late for Pierre and her?

Black is Not a Color is Part II of The Ava Series: Ava Fodor’s journey of self discovery, begun in Paris Adieu.

Praise for Black is Not a Color

“Imagine if Judith Krantz had been a history scholar at Yale when she wrote Scruples. If this idea appeals, you are likely to be engaged and fascinated by Black Is Not A Color. The book is at once witty, smart and touching. It will make you want to devour chicken paprikash and then go shopping at a chic Manhattan boutique with your best girlfriend. A sensitive delineation of family dynamics and some wonderful insight into geopolitical geography.”

—Jane Stern, author of The New York Times bestselling Elvis World, Roadfood, and many other books on food and popular culture

“Rozsa Gaston takes us on another delicious adventure through France and
beyond. Sexy, thrilling, and deeply moving, Black is Not a Color has everything
you’d want in a novel, plus lots of spice, specifically paprika.”

— Jamie Cat Callan, author of French Women Don’t Sleep Alone, Bonjour Happiness! and Ooh La La!

“Readers will be delighted, intrigued and entertained by Black Is Not a Color. This enjoyable continuation of Ava’s worldly tale, begun in Paris Adieu, is full of vibrant characters with great chemistry. Gaston writes this story with intelligence, emotion, creativity and heart.”

—Laurie Weiner, Fairfield Public Library, Fairfield, CT

“Heartwarming, romantic and sexy, Black is Not a Color touches upon friendship, romantic relationships and the strength of familial bonds. This moving read for sophisticated readers evokes both a desire for European travel and a renewed appreciation for my hometown of New York City.”

— Meredith Schorr, author of Just Friends with Benefits and Blogger Girl

“An exotic, romantic adventure with a complex soul that connects us all. And the Hungarian thread that runs through it is just delicious. Big enough and bold enough for the big screen.”

—Atessa Helm, film producer, script and story consultant