• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to footer

Alyssa Richards

Mystery, Thriller, and Romantic Suspense

  • Home
  • Books
    • The Alcott Manor Trilogy
    • The Fine Art of Deception
    • Chasing Secrets
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • About the Author
  • Romantic Suspense
  • Time Travel Romance
  • Romantic Thriller
  • Mystery Suspense
  • All Books

Blog

Jane Austen’s Ring Still Sends Echo of Love and Romance

July 6, 2014 by Alyssa Leave a Comment

130802141334-jane-austen-ring-story-top

It was the latter part of last year that our appraisal firm, The Albrecht Appraisal Firm was asked by The Jane Austen House Museum to appraise a piece of her jewelry. It was a turquoise and gold ring that Jane had worn throughout her life. This particular ring is only one of three pieces left that are known to have belonged to the author.

Oddly, Kelly Clarkson, the singer, had purchased the ring and now Jane Austen’s museum wanted it back. They said it was too much a part of England’s history to be privately owned. I have to agree.

Otto, the owner of our firm and my grandfather’s former partner stopped me in the hallway and told me that we would be performing the appraisal. Though I’m only a lowly researcher, he asked if I would like to assist on the appraisal.

Would I??!!!

Ahem.

“I’d be delighted.”

Would I get to touch it? I could only hope.

Because you see I was born with a gift. Not the gift where I see ghosts. I don’t really consider that ability a gift. But rather the gift of psychometry. The psychic gift of touch. I can give any item the slightest touch, tune in and it’s history comes pouring forth. I can’t often control this gift, so it makes for interesting encounters. And I have to be careful when I touch others’ personal items such as pens, wallets, watches and purses, because I’ll often end up tuning in to the item’s history – and their owners’ stories.

So, I usually keep a general ‘hand-off’ policy with bank pens and other items that have been touched by thousands of people. Trust me. You don’t want to know all too much about most people.

Shudder.

But working in a high-profile appraisal firm I sometimes come across a few objects I’d like to spend a few quiet and tangible moments with. And that’s exactly what happened with the ring that belonged to the original Queen of Romance – Jane Austen.

Otto told Henri, our chief appraiser, that I would shadow him on the appraisal. That meant I would be in the room with Jane Austen’s ring of romance, white gloves in tact, and I’d  get to hold it. Oh God. I could have a psychic orgasm on the spot.

Breathe, Addie.

So, the appraisal process began and right away Henri handed me the ring to show me some slight tarnishing below the central turquoise stone. And then it happened. As it always does. The story began pouring forth. And I didn’t do anything to stop it.

Henri prattled on about the condition of the ring. While I watched and felt the snippet movie of Jane Austen’s life.

The first scene held in her ring opens through Jane’s eyes and I stand in a large candle-lit room with pale walls. The woman next to me is wearing an expensive, imported Parisian gown with a revealing V down the back.  I’m wearing a simple, cream colored cotton dress with an empire waist. A reflection of the station of life Jane was born into.

The ball is filled with exquisite music and suited gentlemen. As Jane, I’m happy just to be in the room. Though my mother is giving me the ‘eye’. The look that says I need to mingle. I need to find a husband. Sigh. A woman’s only goal in the late 1700s. A fact of life that I detest.

I look away from my mother’s glare to find a gentleman standing in front of me, bowing. When he raises, and his eyes meet mine, the attraction is instant. As if everything in my life was leading to this moment. He extends a gloved hand and asks me to dance…

I’d always wondered how a woman who lived in the 1800s and never married was able to write so accurately and passionately about love and loss. Now I would know.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest of her story ….

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/397020523373410419/

 

 

Filed Under: Romance Tagged With: Jane Austen, Jane Austen's ring, Paranormal Romance, Psychometry, romance

Sometimes what you see is what you get – Life of an Empath

June 24, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

I attended a dinner the other night associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Beyond Fashion exhibition. Extraordinary. I highly recommend you make it.

http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2013/charles-james

Anyway – so I was standing in a small group of three society ladies. All of them seasoned experts at navigating New York society, which puts them on the equivalent of mafia bosses, jungle safari guides and maybe lion tamers. As we moved toward our tables, one of the ladies said to me, “I’ll sit next to you since you’re wearing nice jewelry.”

True story.

She said it out loud.

Apparently she wasn’t afraid of being called shallow.

I have to feel a little thankful though. I always appreciate someone who tells me who they are up front. As an empath I’m usually dancing between the outer mask people show and their inner voice they think no one can hear.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Beyond Fashion, Empath, Empathic, Metropolitan Museum of Art

True Love Lives Forever in the Heart, Can’t be Stopped

May 30, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Look at this touching story about true love that survives even Alzheimer’s.

 

Her husband with Alzheimer’s was lost, when he comes home she receives the ‘gift’ of a lifetime. – Melvyn Amrine was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s three years ago. On Mother’s Day he wandered out of the house and was missing. His wife called in and the search began. When the officer’s found him, he was having a moment of clarity which would turn out to be a special moment for the loving couple.

 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-mans-mind-fades-heart-comes-to-the-rescue/

 

 

images-1

Filed Under: News Tagged With: alzheimer's, happiness, love, Mother's Day, romance, true love

Rembrandt’s Storm of Galilee found on The Blacklist

May 28, 2014 by Alyssa Leave a Comment

On the night of March 18, 1990, a pair of thieves disguised as Boston police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and roamed the Museum’s galleries, stealing thirteen works of art.

Rembrandt's   Storm of Galilee
Rembrandt’s
Storm of Galilee

Recently, millions of viewers were shown the secret hiding place of at least one of these precious works of art.

Rembrandt’s Storm of Galilee resides in the home of Raymond Reddington, an international criminal who teams with the FBI to take down nefarious criminals.

Actually, Raymond Reddington is a character on The Blacklist, a fun show on NBC which is headlined by James Spader.

A friend just got me hooked on the show and I’m starting with Season 1 on Amazon Prime. Great show, by the way.  But I nearly dropped my teeth when I watched Episode 6 and saw the James Spader character leaning back in his armchair, absorbing the beauty of Rembrandt’s Storm of Galilee!!

The book I’ve just written, The Fine Art of Deception (coming soon!!!), a paranormal romance mystery, is also the back story to the biggest unsolved art heist in the US. One of the 13 pieces stolen? Rembrandt’s Storm of Galilee.

Well, clearly The Blacklist is a work of fiction…

 

Filed Under: News

I Believe in Ghosts. Do You?

May 11, 2014 by Alyssa Leave a Comment

Ghosts are everywhere. They’re impossible to escape. Some of us see them. Others don’t. I believe in ghosts. Do you?

 

Following is an excerpt from my new novel The Fine Art of Deception. Coming Soon!

 

“It’s dark except for the moonlight coming in through the window behind his back. I lie in my twin bed in my family home, looking out across the ocean of covers, watching the man across the room stare at me. He’s tall and thin with light brown eyes that seem to glow. His thin lips curl back and I feel like prey as he grins at me.
Family are just down the hall, but they might as well be a mile away as paralyzed as I feel.
He’s watching me. Staring at me. Surprised that I can see him, since most people don’t. But he’s not shocked enough to leave. In fact he seems intrigued by the situation.
He doesn’t blink. Neither do I.
I breathe without moving my body, praying for an outpouring of God’s grace to make this man think I’m dead and just leave. I know that if I move, he’ll move. So I remain still.
He’s sick. Disturbed. Obviously lost. Wrong that he should end up in a child’s room at this hour. Or at any hour. He doesn’t belong here anymore. He’s one of the visitors I told my grandmother about. The visitors that find me – most often when no one else is around.

The dream always begins the same way. And at 3 a.m., caught in a deep and powerless sleep, I have no choice but to let it play out.
It has three parts.
First, I’m a child again and reliving my worst nightmare, which is more horrible because I was never asleep when it happened. This time I’m five. But sometimes I’m seven, eleven or even fifteen. The nightmare goes on for years. The players change. The room changes. But the ordeal is always the same.”

Filed Under: Ghosts Tagged With: daily lines, ghost, ghost stories, ghosts, Paranormal Romance, romance, The Fine Art of Deception

Welcome – Paranormal Romance Books!

April 2, 2014 by Alyssa 1 Comment

tulipAlong with the hydrangea leaves, the daffodils and the tulips that have pushed their way through the dark to make their debut on this first day of Spring, so my Paranormal Romance Books blog and website have finally found their way to the light of day as well. Like many things in life, the site took a little longer than I expected. But I’m so glad it’s finally arrived.

My itch to write fiction has been with me since before I wrote my first story at 10. But the cork on my creativity didn’t really pop until I received a fateful email from a friend.  “You should write fiction,” she wrote to me. “Lots of it.”  I started writing fiction (again)  that day and have loved *every* minute of it since. It’s just the creative outlet I needed.

I’m launching this site with my first paranormal romance books mystery, The Fine Art of Deception. It’s the story of Blake and Addie, two intriguing characters who have found themselves in the middle of lives they never expected, lives full of romance and danger, haunting ghosts and, much to Addie’s disappointment, psychic gifts that won’t be controlled.

Oh, the trouble Blake and Addie will see… Here’s a sneak peek …

The Fine Art of Deception Alyssa RichardsAddie wants to be like everyone else. Problem is she isn’t. 

Addison Montgomery was born with a very special gift, the kind most people would kill for. She can see things most people can’t. Give something a light touch and its story comes pouring forth. The downside? Seeing things she doesn’t want to see – like vicious ghosts and people’s hidden thoughts and feelings.

Last time someone discovered how deeply she could see, she lost her cherished career – and her fiancé.

People don’t like you when you see their secrets.

Now with a new job and new friends, she’s handling her gifts differently. Determined to fix the problem and be like everyone else. Pretend to be normal. Not see. Trouble is once you see, you can’t not see.

At The Albrecht Firm she works for Otto, her grandfather’s old friend and business partner. Otto is a good man running a solid business. Or is he? His colleague Blake Greenwood is handsome, rich, and dangerous. Addie can’t resist a strong attraction though she doubts she should trust him. Soon she’s caught up in the glamor and excitement of New York’s art world – and, to her dismay, the fine art of deception.

Blake has a secret, one that could kill them both. As Addie begins to uncover it, she falls prey to the sexual electricity that sparks between them.

She realizes she’s in way over her head when she uncovers a huge forgery ring, family secrets, and an angry ghost who has set his evil sights on her. Discovering she’s been conned into being part of the country’s largest art heist, she’s in a fight for her life.

Filed Under: News

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 22
  • Go to page 23
  • Go to page 24

Footer

Follow Me

  • facebook
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • amazon
  • goodreads
  • pinterest
  • bold
  • mail

Sign up for Updates!

Copyright © 2021 · Author Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in