To Win at Romance You Need a Basic Strategy of Love -- Cruise Quarters on sale for $.99 at Amazon and on KU

 

RAY AND I ENJOYING A DAY OFF IN THE CARIBBEAN

I love reality shows like 90 Day Fiancé, Love Is Blind and my all-time favorite, Married at First Sight. I will watch anything if the goal of the show is a good relationship, love or marriage. I call myself The Hopeful Romantic, because I met Ray and married him four months later. We could have qualified for 90 Day Fiancé because he was from Scotland. So, I hold these shows close to my heart.

On Married at Frist Sight couples meet at the altar. They have never seen their person before and don’t know anything about them except for the fact that they have been matched by experts. If one of the partners doesn’t like the looks of the other one there is almost no chance that the marriage will survive. Chemistry can make or break the relationship. In Nashville when Gina told Clint that she didn’t like gingers my heart broke for him. I thought he was really cute. Then the next day he said she wasn't as slender as the girls he usually dated. I see divorce in their future. The dynamics of how couples do or don’t make things work fascinates me. Especially if I can watch their stories safely from the comfort of my living room.

The show brings back that terrifying time after college when life was full of possibilities and fraught with loose connections. I dated guys when I didn't know if they were my boyfriend or not, but I was too afraid to ask. I also dated guys who I promptly dumped because they were too nice. Sometimes a bad haircut was all it would take and once a guy got dumped for bringing me a single rose, a very nice gesture. I would have happily signed up for the show because my picker was definitely broken. The experts had to do a better job than me.

In my twenties I was teaching high school and though I loved my students, why wouldn't I, we were about the same age! But the thought of staying in my hometown and teaching for the next forty years filled me with torschlusskpanik, the German word for the fear of missing the boat. I left for California, got a job dealing in a casino and never looked back. My job was sorted out but I still kept dating the bad boy, the elusive, uncommitted one I was going to make fall in love with me.

It took me a long time to sort myself out get married and live happily ever after, but I finally met my Mr. Right, while working on a cruise ship. We decided to tell our story in Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Stand behind a blackjack table for years, deal to thousands of couples and you learn a thing or two about people. Gamblers know that to win at blackjack you have to play basic strategy. In our novel Sarah (my alter-ego) learns from her past mistakes to write her own basic strategy of love. Maybe hers can help you take some shortcuts, but probably not, we all have to suffer our own heart breaks. Everyone needs to throw away the self-help book they are reading and write their own.

Below is Sarah's, if you come up with a new strategy leave a comment here or e-mail me at carabertoia@yahoo.com. I have put Cruise Quarters on sale for $.99 this week (Feb 10 to 17) to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

                           SARAH SELDON’S BASIC STRATEGY OF LOVE

 1. It’s a sure bet that if someone doesn’t introduce you to his family, he thinks there is something wrong with you -- or his family.

 2. It is a mistake to fall for a strong silent type; you will get tired of doing all the talking, and he will get tired of doing all the listening.

 3. Don’t fall in love with someone who is a challenge; if you want a challenge, go climb Mt. Everest.

 4. It is not important that you share all the same interests, only that you are both open to new and different things.

 5. Some people think a relationship has to include drama; without drama it can’t be love. Drama is just drama, not love. If you want drama, go see a play.

 6. The first time someone cheats is never the last time someone cheats; it is just the first time someone cheats.

 7. Never get involved with someone who blames all his problems on others; you will soon be one of the others.

 8. If there is something wrong in a relationship, you know it. He stops looking you in the eye, he doesn’t call every day. People always have a tell. They always leave a clue, you just have to look for it.

9. In love as in cards, it's hard to walk away from a winning streak, even harder to leave the table when you're on a losing one. Always know when to give up the dream and walk away.

 10. The golden rule of love is this: always be with someone who likes you just the way you are, quirks and all. Always love someone just the way they are. You can change sheets, not people.

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!" She would be happy to do an online chat with any book club reading her novels. Contact her at carabertoia@yahoo.com

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"She would be happy to do an online chat with any book club reading her novels. Contact her at carabertoia@yahoo.com

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada

Her second novel, Casino Queen is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry, although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. 

"Glitter, grifters and greed collide with high stakes mystery and suspense in Casino Queen. With her in-depth knowledge of the casino world, Cara Bertoia takes readers on a wild ride through the High Desert that leaves you hungry for more." - Rob Samborn, author The Prisoner of Paradise

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® 

.

What Not To Do If Your Cruise Ship Is Sinking

 

Ray attending a lifeboat drill.

Cruise season is here, and I decided to update a blog I wrote about, what not to do if your cruise ship is sinking. Because safety is always important. I worked for Princess Cruises for five years happily traveling the world when I met my future husband Ray on the Star Princess.

Cruise ships have excellent safety records in fact the last time one sank was in 2012. That year the Costa Concordia sank off the coast of the island of Giglio, enroute to Civitavecchia, a port I had visited many times working for Princess Cruises. I would like to say that in all my years at sea I never encountered a captain like Francesco Schettino who abandoned his ship. I considered all the captains I worked for kings of their ship, they were all very professional, attentive and if I have to admit it, a little bit scary.

While normally I am not one to comment on ship safety the lack of knowledge of some of the press made me feel I had to write this post. A newscaster was interviewing some passengers after they had made it back to safety in the US. They told him that when they realized that the ship was in trouble they were dressed in formal wear, an evening gown and high heels. Reasoning that this was not the proper attire for lifeboat travel, they returned to their cabins and changed their clothes.

The commentator congratulated them, "What clear thinking,"

NO, NO, NO, it was not clear thinking returning to their cabin. It was a horrible idea. It is never a good idea to return to your cabin when a ship is possibly sinking. There are just too many things that can go wrong, What if the ship is on fire? What if the electricity goes off? What if the ship tilts, and you can't open the door to your cabin? When you hear any kind of alarm you should proceed to your muster station and if you don't know where it is then proceed to the highest open deck.

Even though international law states that a lifeboat drill has to be held at most 24 hours after a boat leaves port, every ship I ever worked on held an emergency drill as soon as the ship sailed. As a crew member I also attended many drills over the course of my career at sea. If you read my book Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships, I talk about the 'how to board a lifeboat drills', 'how to locate a bomb drills', 'how to crawl out of your cabin in case of a fire drills', and even a drill about the proper way to jump off the side of a ship without breaking your neck!

The following story perfectly illustrates my point.

Ray had been working on a Greek ship for three months and was very familiar with his surroundings. One day while the ship was docked in Patras he went out to lunch with a friend. Returning to the ship, they learned the engine room was on fire and the ship had been evacuated. After a few hours the fire had been extinguished but the ship was declared out of service for repairs. They allowed the crew to board so that they could collect their belongings.

There was no power or lights working on the ship. When Ray left the ships entrance and headed to his cabin, he became disoriented walking down the pitch-black corridor. He found his cabin by counting the doors. Once inside he relied on the light from the porthole as he gathered his belongings but leaving his cabin, he found it very difficult to find his way back to the gangway. His walk was further complicated by the debris that had been dropped in the hallway, by the other crew in their scramble to get off the ship.

My main point is that even in this situation when the ship was stable and upright and there was no immediate danger or rush and no crowd of panicking passengers, finding his way around the corridors of the ship was no easy task - and he was a crew member. So imagine the problems a passenger would have in the middle of an emergency situation.

Although ships are very safe and safety is taken very seriously on a cruise ship, accidents can still happen. We hope this helps you if you ever find yourself on a sinking ship. Please share this information to anyone you know going on a cruise.

As an update to this article in 2015 a court found Captain Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning the ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!" She would be happy to do an online chat with any book club reading her novels. Contact her at carabertoia@yahoo.com

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada

Her second novel, Casino Queen is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry, although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. 

"Glitter, grifters and greed collide with high stakes mystery and suspense in Casino Queen. With her in-depth knowledge of the casino world, Cara Bertoia takes readers on a wild ride through the High Desert that leaves you hungry for more." - Rob Samborn, author The Prisoner of Paradise

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® 

Below Deck Season Nine Sails From Saint Kitts -- On Bravo

 

THE FIRST CREW OF BELOW DECKS ABOVE DECKS

Ever since I was very young I always wanted to run away to sea. I was born in Charleston, S.C. and love the ocean. I did finally join a cruise ship as a croupier and everywhere we sailed to, there were yachts. At the Cannes Film festival there were gorgeous yachts filled with beautiful Europeans. In the Caribbean the yachts moored in secluded coves too small for cruise ships. Have you ever been curious about what it is like to be part of the crew on a private yacht?

Now I have your answer. Bravo's reality show Below Decks is returning with its ninth season, and I have been cruising with them since the launch. In the pilot the show sailed out of Saint Martin which holds a special place in my heart because my future husband and I had our first date there. It is a beautiful island divided into a Dutch side filled with duty-free shops and a French side filled with fantastic restaurants.  We both worked on a cruise ship, the best part of a cruise ship is that you have much more time off than the crew of a private yacht. They work with fifteen other crew members we worked with over six hundred. This season the crew will sail out of Saint Kitts another beautiful island in the Caribbean.

In the show the crew is on call twenty-four hours a day. The officers are trained professionals, but most of the cast is a group of attractive people doing essentially service and maintenance jobs; you won’t need your college degree here. But since the pay is all in tips and room and board is included what a great place to save up money to pay off those loans. The cost of the cruise can run up to $150,000 a week, and the average tip is between 10 to 15%v of the cost, so tips for each crew member averages between $1,000 and $2,000 a week. That being said some of the guests are very difficult, the chef has to change his menu on a guest’s whim, and the stewards might have to not only unpack but iron all the passengers’ clothes. You would think they would go on vacation to relax but to type ‘A’ personalities making demands and finding fault are part of a good vacation. Since most people bring their friends it is also a way to try to impress your mates with your importance. It really does show how hard the work is and that you have to have nerves of steel, to handle out of line comments such as ‘how great your tits are’.

Because this is a reality show, the focus is definitely on bad behavior. On their one day off a week it is all about getting pissed and hooking up. It was like that on a cruise ship we even had a crew bar, but we had some time off everyday, so when we got to port our major focus was sight seeing - and then getting pissed. As for shipboard romances, being a hopeful romantic I am all for them. I met my husband when we both worked on a cruise ship, and with no commute to work, or bills to pay for rent or food, it was a wonderful experience, a vacation from the real world. We computed everything in ships time, a week at sea is like a month on land for a new romance. The most fun part of every season is figuring who will hook up.

Every season has their issues. This is what I wrote about the first season. Sam hates Adrienne her boss because she is very demanding. CJ is upset because the captain keeps telling him to put his shirt back on. I can tell you if Sam was on a cruise ship she would have been booted off before the week was over for insolence. On a cruise ship an officer is to be obeyed. Only Captain Lee and Eddie Lucas are still cast members and they are the heart and soul of the cast.

This show will be interesting for anyone who loves to cruise. The setting is beautiful and there are facts to be gleaned between the cat-fights. The crew works hard and parties hard, but the work is the main focus for any crew. I just wish the show was more focused on the mechanics of the cruise world but alas the show is on Bravo not the Discovery Channel. I left cruise ships with wonderful memories and a Scottish husband, and thought not everyone can be that lucky. I am sure the crew of Below Decks will cherish this experience for the rest of their lives.

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Click the below to order at Barnes and Noble

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Cara Bertoia is the author of Casino Queen a new mystery novel that will be published by the Wild Rose Press on March 16th. It is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Read the blurb here.

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength, she learns, you have to gamble like your life depends on it. Because it often does.rtoia is the author of Casino Queen a new mystery novel that will be published by the Wild Rose Press on March 16th. It is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Read the blurb here.

.

THE NEXT BIG THING WRITERS TELL ABOUT THEMSELVES AND PASS IT ALONG

A fellow writer Georgina Young Ellis, a great writer of time travel novels asked me if I would take part in a blog chain where writers post what they are working on now for the Next Big Thing.  Her third novel, The Time Contessa will be published in Jan.

I am working currently on a blog about everything that has to do with travel  I have been  focusing lately on travel destinations around Southern California. One posting I especially liked writing focused on my hometown and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Next week I will be posting a blog about Slab City, a very interesting community just east of the Salton Sea. 

Every wondered what a post apocalyptic world would look like. This place will give you a glimpse of a possible future. I have started writing a novel about a future society. 

How did you come by the idea for your blog?

I had so much fun writing about my adventures working on a cruise ship in my novel Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships and I got so much good feedback from my readers that I just wanted to share more. Also my novel will be featured as Bargain Book of the Day at E Reader News Today on Dec 2. 

What genre does your book fall under?

My book is a funny novelization of life aboard a cruise ship, with travel and romance thrown in. I find it really hard to place it under any one genre.

Who could play these people in the movie?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters if it were a movie?

Well I wouldn't go for big stars, because mine is a story about ordinary people that anyone can relate to. I would choose Judy Greer for Sarah, she currently plays Ashton Kutcher's ex-wife in Two and a Half Men. My choice for Paul is a bloke named Aaron McCusker, he has been a bar owner on the original, British Shameless for years. In my opinion the best television show in the world. He also has dreamy eyes like my husband.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I wish I could take credit for this but a reader, Janis in Oregon wrote the perfect description on my novel, "This novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads." 

What inspired you to write your book and how long did it take you to write it? 

I have always loved to travel. Ever since I was a little girl my favorite hobby was reading novels about far away places, on a hot summer day I would be Mary Queen of Scots locked in the chilly London Tower. When I was in college I studied in Mexico for a semester and after that there was no holding me down. There is a German word for that feeling -- torschlusskpanik the fear of missing the boat. In my case, literally.

While in Boston I was offered the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. Jumping at the chance, I spent the next five years circling the globe. Sometimes life exceeds your dreams. I was awed by the wonders of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in Leningrad but on the downside I also watched glaciers melt at an alarming rate in Alaska, snorkeled to coral reefs killed by pollution in the Caribbean, and witnessed the devastation as the Amazon burned. It was the best education I could ever have had. Taking advantage of every opportunity to be a tour guide, I soaked in as much history as I could.

Since I had studied writing at Emerson I knew that when I went to sea I would write about my experiences. Every night spent in the crew bar I chalked up to research. I learned so much about my fellow crewmembers that I just wanted to tell our tales. The fact that my novel turned into a love story surprised me most of all.

I left ships with a handsome Scotsman who became my husband. We moved to Palm Springs and got a job in the casino industry and it is here that we wrote our novel. It is based on our true story only the names have been changed to protect us! So the very long answer is that it took years!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don't know if I can compare my book to any other but I do think I like to play romance a bit like Nick Hornby. Men seem to be able to really relate to the characters. But I feel like our travel writing is unique to Ray and I.

To further the chain I will introduce you the Revita Horowitz the author of Daughter's of Iraq, a wonderful story about a family who immigrated to Israel from Iraq. Her new novel Hope to See You Soon, deals with the immigrant experience in the U.S. But just follow this link and she can tell you all about it.
Click here to visit Revita's blog about The Next Big Thing

And if you want to learn more about time travel -
Here is the link to Georgina's blog Nerd- Girls Romantics and Time Travelers

Cara Bertoia is the author of the critically acclaimed Casino Queen, a new suspense novel published by The Wild Rose Press. She has drawn from her years in the casino industry to create a fascinating thriller. It is all true although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. It had been featured at The Big Thrill and Women Writers Women's Books and at many other sites. Read the blurb here.

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength, she learns, you have to gamble like your life depends on it. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

Click the link below to order at Amazon, enjoy your stay at the Night Hawk!

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.    

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

                         To check out my interview in The Big Thrill, click the link below.

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | THE BIG THRILL

 About the author:

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

Click the link to find at Amazon Brazil
Click to find at Barnes and Noble
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring. 
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon

HORRORS! SWIMSUIT SEASON IS UPON US AGAIN!

What is normal these days? They sell a mixture that contains 15% pink slime and they call it lean ground beef, they put high fructose corn syrup in canned tomato soup, and when you fly on a plane you have to pay to check your baggage. These things happen and gradually we just accept them. And now in clothing sizes who the hell knows what the new Normal is?

I was dragging my husband with me shopping the other day. If he doesn’t like something I wear he lets me know it, so I decided he should go with me while I picked an outfit out, to bypass the insult. We were wandering around the department store where I was trying to find some new t-shirts. Well that might seem easy enough but I wanted a shirt that you couldn’t see through, that you could wash and that came past my belly button so that the top of my ass wouldn’t show every time I bent down.

My sweet husband picked up a t-shirt and held it up for me, “I like this it must be about your size.”

Bless his heart he had picked up a small. “A small are you kidding, have you looked at that shirt.” He held it up and I would have sworn it wouldn’t fit a young child but I looked around and we were in the women’s department.

“Well how about this one,” he reached for a medium.

“A medium, who do you think I am, Paris Hilton?’

“What do you mean - you aren’t a medium?”

“A medium, I hate to break it to you but for the last five years I have been an extra large, not a large but an extra large, and god forbid I ever throw it in the dryer.” I grabbed an extra large shirt and held it up to me.

I could see his confusion. I am 5”5’ and weigh 135 pounds on a good day, 137 on a bad one. A weight that shouldn’t be considered extra large. A weight that wasn’t considered extra large ten years ago. A weight that is a little below normal on the height and weight charts. A weight that I worked damn hard to get to in the last two years. I have lost weight but the funny thing is the more weight I lose the bigger my clothing size. I know there is something funny going on.

I am convinced that all the clothing manufacturers got together and said. Hey, how can we make the American woman feel even worse about herself? We can resize all her clothes. We will base all our measurements on a thirteen year old girl. And since everything is manufactured abroad the manufacturers can send anything over here slap any old size on it and save on materials! It doesn’t mean that the clothes will be cheaper. I keep hoping that since everything is made in China this is only a translation problem and XL really means Extra Lucky.

The perfect fit, a Grecian Slender Suit!

                                                            

But if you won't tell anyone I will let you in on a little secret. I don't dread buying a bathing suit. Would you like to know how you will never again have to stand under those unforgiving fluorescent lights in a retail store fitting room? One of the happiest days of my year is when The Lands' End swimsuit catalog arrives. For the last ten years I have ordered all my bathing suits through the internet. I choose a size larger than my own a 12 instead of a 10, and god bless, besides a great selection they even have long waisted swimsuits.

No, I don't have any affiliation with the company, and I am not getting a free swimsuit. But if they happen upon this blog and they are feeling generous I would love a Slender Suit, holds you in at all the right places, in the Sweetheart or Grecian style in that pretty rose color I saw in the catalog.

In the meantime, we the American consumer will grit our teeth and swallow a Zanax every time we have to go to the mall. It just means that if we find anything that fits we will wear it until the seams dissolve. I don't think it is as bad in Britain when my husband and I go to Scotland to visit his family I always go to Frazer's to  buy clothes because I seem to wear an average size there. As for gifts I never give anyone clothes anymore, I don’t want my friends to unwrap something labeled XL and get insulted.

Yes, our destruction is complete; the sexy, curvy American woman has been replaced by a botoxed, bleached, anorexic model. So I give up and surrender and wait for the day when I become an extra, extra large or extra, extra lucky.

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

Click the link to find at Amazon Brazil
Click to find at Barnes and Noble
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring. 
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon

.

A SHOUT OUT TO THE AMAZON REVIEWER

                                               

I have a few things to say about the Amazon reviewer, thank you, thank you, thank you. Recently my book was featured at Women Writers Women's Books and the first thing that a potential reader will see will be my Amazon reviewer rating, a 4.8. It is the thumbs up that the people who read my book really enjoyed it and what more could any writer want. Everyone knows that writing is a solitary past time. There are so many hurdles to being a writer that sometimes you wonder why you do it.

I remember how I got started in writing. I was dealing cards in a Lake Tahoe casino. The casino owner was a plumbing contractor from Fresno. The head of security was an ex-Mossad officer and every few weeks we would be strapped down and given lie detector tests. They let porn movies be filmed in the casino and there were rumors that he rigged the slot machines. I’m not sure if that was true but he did manage to get his casino closed down by the Nevada gaming commission, no small feat. One day a sports agent with Hollywood connections played on my game and encouraged me to write down all my great casino stories. That was the day I became a writer, well my script got as far as HBO where it was promptly rejected but that didn’t matter, I was a writer.

A year later I went back to the real world and became a systems analyst by day, writer by night. I lived in Boston, the home of perpetual students and so I was able to take writing classes and join critique groups and get better. After a few years I began working on an MA in writing at Emerson because it had connections in Hollywood. Well, just before I was scheduled to intern in Los Angeles as a script reader I got the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. My choice was spend my dwindling savings on an internship or get paid to see the world. I wasn’t scared of going - only staying. The Germans have a word for it torschlusskpanik, the fear of missing the boat.

I stayed at sea for five years and I would like to say that I wrote every day, but I didn’t. I spent those years soaking up all the history I could. The ship was my home and the crew bar was my living room and the nights I spent there were research since I planned to tell the story of all my crew-mates someday. And then on my last contract I met Ray and my novel became a love story and that surprised me more than anyone else.

We settled in Palm Springs and I began writing my novel 'Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships'. There were years of writing and editing, rewriting and more re-writing but finally I decided my novel was ready to face the world. You think that when it is published the hard part is over but it is only beginning. Then your job as an author is to do everything you can to get the word out to readers and then you wait for that special reader to find you.

But then you turn on you computer one day and you look up your book on Amazon, and you find something like this.

5.0 out of 5 stars Getting Ready to Embark on My Cruise

By 

Janis  "Janis in Oregon" (Grants Pass, OR USA) -

Amazon Verified Purchase (This review is from: Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships (Kindle Edition)

This novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. While I've been on many cruises, I am about to embark on a 2-week cruise and this book also is kind of a primer for setting sail. It is a fun read with interesting cruising tidbits. Go for it.

Janis from Oregon wrote a review so good that I think it is the perfect sales pitch for my book. She got it. Janis knew exactly what I was trying to do when I wrote my book. That alone makes all the hard work worth it.

It is not easy to write an Amazon review. In fact a large majority or readers never write a review. You have to go back to Amazon after you have read the book and write your review and submit it to Amazon. I also think reviewers like all writers suffer from performance anxiety. They are putting something out there for all they world to see.

But in my mind Amazon reviewers are incredible writers. Randy Benjamin (Netguider) wrote a fantastic review of my book and brought up points in the book that I had taken for granted but that really caught his attention as a reader. He always wanted to know what it was like to work on a cruise ship and now he does.  Dafna Yee loved my three-dimensional characters. I re-wrote my dialogue a hundred times to make my conversations sound natural and nuanced. Patrice Fitzgerald a great writer and the author of the political thriller Running, took my book along with her on a cruise. R.A. Brittan said it was one of the most enjoyable books she had ever read. What author wouldn't be thrilled to read that?

I use Amazon reviews all the time as a reader. I love to know what actual readers are saying about a book because they are the ones who have purchased it. Their opinion can sway me to click that Amazon buy button. I particularly enjoy going back to the review page after reading a book, it is like having you own book club where you get to discuss the book with readers from around the country.

I know that other writers feel the same way about the Amazon reviewer. I belong to 'Writing Kindle Books' a fantastic network of writers. Writers love to post their reviews. They glory in every five star review. Because everyone knows you don't write for the money but to tell your story. And the Amazon reviewer doesn't write for money either but out of the love of books. So thank you to the Amazon reviewer, the people that make it all worthwhile, keep them coming.

Cara Bertoia is the author of the critically acclaimed Casino Queen, a new suspense novel published by The Wild Rose Press. She has drawn from her years in the casino industry to create a fascinating thriller. It is all true although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. It had been featured at The Big Thrill and Women Writers Women's Books and at many other sites. Read the blurb here.

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength, she learns, you have to gamble like your life depends on it. With her life on the line can she pull out a win?

Click the link below to order at Amazon, enjoy your stay at the Night Hawk!

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.    

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

                         To check out my interview in The Big Thrill, click the link below.

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | THE BIG THRILL

About the author:

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

Click the link to find at Amazon Brazil
Click to find at Barnes and Noble
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring. 
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon

THE BEST PART OF CRUISING - SAILING AWAY FROM IT ALL

Skeptics always ask me why I love cruising so much. What makes it so special? They ask me this because I once worked on a cruise ship. I love cruise ships because I love the ocean. But what make a cruise ship so special? Well, my favorite thing about a cruise ship is the sail away. I know that you also sail into a port but that usually happens when you are fast asleep in your cabin encased in your soft high thread count luxury sheets. But sail away is a time when most of the passengers gather on the deck to watch the ship leave a port, drink frou-frou drinks and wave at those unfortunates on the dock that won't be sailing with us. This week I will tell you about my favorite place to sail away from.

My number one place to leave is Venice, and not because I want to get away but because I love Venice so much. In fact, much of the first chapter of my novel Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships is set in Venice. One of most memorable experiences was planning a pizza party on the crew deck. Earlier in the day I had bought cheap bottles of red wine in town but I didn't have to bring the pizzas because onboard an Italian head chef made sure that the pizza was thin and crispy with just a smattering of sauce and cheese that is hard to duplicate in American but can be found in any town in Italy.

The most beautiful sail away in the world - Venice, Italy

The sail away from Venice was set in the late afternoon for the greatest dramatic appeal. The whole city takes on a golden glow. It is a balmy summer day, with the movement of the ship creating a soft breeze on deck. The ship meanders past medieval houses and cathedrals painted in muted earth tone colors. The harbor is crowded with water taxis, gondolas, and boats moving produce and goods through the canals. Commerce moving as it has for thousands of years. While the ship meanders past all of this splendor all the casino staff are lounging on the crew deck, sipping local red wine and chewing on crispy hot, fresh pizza that has just been delivered from the kitchen.

And then we sail past St. Marks Square, if there is a more beautiful place on earth show it to me. Thousands of tourists are gawking at the Doge's Palace and the Basilica waiting for The Moor to strike his bell. The music from the violinist playing in the square is barely discernable from the ship. The day is perfect, the chance for days like that are why I lived on ships for many years.

I know that some of you have been to Venice, some left by plane where long lines and customs awaited you. Some of you went by train and what a great way to see the countryside. But as for me, I will always cherish those sail aways from Venice.

About the author:

Cara Bertoia is the author of Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships. Her novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. Kindle Fire Dept. says, "This novel is a gem that is nothing short of a vacation in a book!"

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships

Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click here to find at Amazon Canada
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

Click the link to find at Amazon Brazil
Click to find at Barnes and Noble
Ray and Cara have also produced the number one guide on walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.
The Desert Woman calls it inspiring. 
Click the link to find the DVD Camino de Santiago a Walkers Guide at Amazon

CARA BERTOIA INTERVIEWED BY AUTHOR MATT POSNER

This week I was interviewed by Matt Posner the talented author of School of The Ages.

What's your name, where are you from, where do you live?
My name is Cara Bertoia and I live in Palm Springs, Ca. It is a beautiful little town on the edge of a very big desert surrounded by chocolate colored mountains.

What do you write and why do you write it?
I write stories about my life, the lives of people around me and I try to write funny and romance is about the funniest thing I can think of.

Recommend to readers a book you have written.
Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos And Cruise Ships is the # 1 cruise ship and the #1 casino novel at the Kindle store. It was chosen as 'Read of the Week' at Tripatini.com.
 
The Review Girl blog raves, "Cruise Quarters is an amazing travel novel which is as much about romance as it is about travel (the novel is based on their real-life love story)."
It is a fun, fast paced tale of working in the casino aboard a Regal Cruises cruise-ship. It is based on a true story and was written by authors who have decades of experience working on luxury cruise ships and in casinos across the globe.

But a reader Janis from Oregon wrote a review that is so good that I think it is the perfect sales pitch for my book:
This review is from: Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships (Kindle Edition)
This novel is really a travelogue, a narrative, a romance, a self-help manual for gambling and cruising, and a real-life story all rolled into one funny, obsessive, and entertaining story of two people whose separate life journeys meet at a crossroads. While I've been on many cruises, I am about to embark on a 2-week cruise and this book also is kind of a primer for setting sail. It is a fun read with interesting cruising tidbits. Go for it.

Recommend to readers a book by someone else.
I would like to recommend three books that address the torture that is dating. I like them because they made me laugh, and I could really relate to the characters. The first is Scratch by Danny Gillan, it is a funny tale about lost love set in Glasgow - my husbands hometown. I had been to so many of the settings in the book I felt right at home. Next is Suzanne Tyrpak, Dating My Vibrator because haven't we all dated our vibrator once or twice. And lastly Dreamboat (The Frisky Chronicles) by Frisky Dimplebums this is just a short read that makes you cringe but you shake your head and go I've been there. Don't forget to read Frisky's biography.

I have Suzanne Tyrpak's book on my Kindle. I could tell some funny vibrator stories, but I'm a young adult author, so....
Okay, just one. When I was in college, I went to a party in a dorm room where two girls lived. One of them (whose name, Tara, I will not reveal) had a vibrator which appeared in the midst of the party. Someone set it down on the tile floor and turned it on, and it spun around and around. You can imagine how funny this would be at a college party. I was sober and I nearly fell over from watching it. Okay, that's it for vibrator stories. Your stories are better than mine, anyway...

Tell an interesting experience from your life as a writer.
After I graduated college I got a job teaching high school in North Carolina. On a summer break I drove across country with two friends and we all got jobs in a casino in Lake Tahoe. Tahoe was a beautiful place and casino jobs were the best ones, especially dealing. They all went home and I stayed. I worked at Caesars Palace for a few years but then I moved to the North Shore of the Lake. The place I worked at was an old school casino it had been a rat pack hangout in the old days and even now autographed photos of movie stars adorn the walls. The casino sat right on the lake and as I dealt I looked out at a beautiful view of the crystal blue lake. The border between Nevada and California ran down the middle of the casino.
 
The owner was a plumbing contractor from Fresno. The head of security was an ex-Mossad officer and every few weeks we would be strapped down and given lie detector tests. They let porn movies be filmed in the casino and there were rumors that he rigged the slot machines. I’m not sure if that was true but he did manage to get his casino closed down by the Nevada gaming commission, no small feat. One day a sports agent with Hollywood connections played on my game and encouraged me to write down all my great casino stories. That was the day I became a writer, well my script got as far as HBO where it was promptly rejected but that didn’t matter, I was a writer.

Tell an interesting experience from a non-writing job you've had.
A year later I went back to the real world and became a systems analyst by day, writer by night. I lived in Boston, the home of perpetual students and so I was able to take writing classes and join critique groups and get better. After a few years I began working on an MA in writing at Emerson because it had connections in Hollywood. Well, just before I was scheduled to intern in Los Angeles as a script reader I got the opportunity to join Princess Cruises as a croupier. My choice was spend my dwindling savings on an internship or get paid to see the world. I wasn’t scared of going only staying. The Germans have a word for it torschlusskpanik, the fear of missing the boat.
 
I stayed at sea for five years and I would like to say that I wrote everyday but I didn’t. I spent those years soaking up all the history I could. The ship was my home and the crew bar was my living room and the nights I spent there were research since I planned to tell the story of all my crewmates someday. And then on my last contract I met Ray and my novel became a love story and that surprised me more than anyone.

If you had a brush with death, describe it.
One night after dinner a friend and I were walking on the sidewalk in Brookline, Mass. We paused to window shop when a car slammed into a pole just in the spot we would have been if we hadn't stopped to look into that shop. That car would have flattened us, so I feel like I really just cheated death by a few seconds.

What are your views about love?
In my novel Sarah Seldon writes her Basic Strategy of Love.
I will share number 10 with you.
The golden rule of love is this: always be with someone who likes you just the way you are, quirks and all. Always love someone just that way he is. You can change sheets, not people.

Give me a link to a funny youtube video.
This is a funny video we made about Christmas in Beverly Hills a few years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZXbaGCjTmc

Where can readers look up more about your work?
The address for our blogs are:
http://casinosandcruiseships.blogspot.com/
http://tablegamesconfessions.blogspot.com/
http://carabertoia.blogspot.com

Below is the links to Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships
Click the link to find at Amazon.com
Click the link to find at Amazon United Kingdom
Click the link to find at Amazon Germany

Click the link to find at Amazon France

Click the link to find at Amazon Italy

Click the link to find at Amazon Spain 

 
Click to find Cruise Quarters at Barnes and Noble

WHAT NOT TO DO IF YOUR CRUISE SHIP IS SINKING

Ray attending a lifeboat drill

Last Sunday night the Costa Concordia sank off the coast of the island of Giglio, enroute to Civitavecchia, a port I had visited many times working for Princess Cruises. I would like to say that in all my years at sea I never encountered a captain like Francesco Schettino. I considered all the captains kings of their ship, they were all very professional, attentive and if I have to admit it, a little bit scary.

While normally I am not one to comment on ship safety the lack of knowledge of some of the announcers made me feel I had to write this post. A newscaster was interviewing some passengers after they had made it back to safety in the US. They told him that when they realized that the ship was in trouble they were dressed in formal wear, an evening gown and high heels. Reasoning that this was not the proper attire for lifeboat travel, they returned to their cabins and changed their clothes.

The commentator congratulated them, "What clear thinking,"

NO, NO, NO, it was not clear thinking returning to their cabin. It was a horrible idea. It is never a good idea to return to your cabin when a ship is possibly sinking. There are just too many things that can go wrong, What if the ship is on fire? What if the electricity goes off? What if the ship tilts and you can't open the door to your cabin? When you hear any kind of alarm you should proceed to your muster station and if you don't know where it is then proceed to the highest open deck.

Even though international law states that a lifeboat drill has to be held at least 24 hours after a boat leaves port, every ship I ever worked on held an emergency drill as soon as the ship sailed. As a crew member I also attended many drills over the course of my career at sea. If you read my book Cruise Quarters - A Novel About Casinos and Cruise Ships, I talk about the 'how to board a lifeboat drills', 'how to locate a bomb drills', 'how to crawl out of your cabin in case of a fire drills', and even a drill about the proper way to jump off the side of a ship without breaking your neck!

The following story perfectly illustrates my point.

Ray had been working on a Greek ship for three months and was very familiar with his surroundings. One day while the ship was docked in Patras he went out to lunch with a friend. When they returned to the ship they discovered the engine room was on fire and the ship had been evacuated. After a few hours the fire had been put out but the ship was declared out of service for repairs. They allowed the crew to board so that they could collect their belongings.

There was no power or lights working on the ship. When Ray left the ships entrance and headed to his cabin, he became disoriented walking down the pitch black corridor. He found his cabin by counting the doors. Once inside he relied on the light from the porthole as he gathered his belongings, but leaving the his cabin he found it very difficult to find his way back to the gangway. His walk was further complicated by the debris that had been dropped in the hallway, by the other crew in their scramble to get off the ship.

Our main point is that even in this situation when the ship was stable and upright and there was no immediate danger or rush and no crowd of panicking passengers, finding his way around the bowels of the ship was no easy task - and he was a crew member. So imagine the problems a passenger would have in the middle of an emergency situation.

Although ships are very safe and safety is taken very seriously on a cruise ship accidents can still happen. We hope this helps you if you ever find yourself on a sinking ship.

As an update to this article we are sorry to report that Sandor Feher the violinist on the Costa ship, helped children into their life-jackets and then left to return to his cabin to retrieve his violin and was never seen again.

Click the link below to order at Amazon

Casino Queen (Night Hawk Casino Series Book 1) - Kindle edition by Bertoia, Cara. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Click the link below to order at Barnes and Noble 

Casino Queen by Cara Bertoia | NOOK Book (eBook) | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Cara Bertoia is the author of Casino Queen a new mystery novel that will be published by the Wild Rose Press on March 16th. It is based on the many true stories she lived through in her many years in the casino industry although the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Read the blurb here.

Caroline Popov, alone, heartbroken, and deeply in debt ends up in glamorous Palm Springs, California where Native casinos have just opened, offering employment to thousands. She lands a job at the Palm Oasis Casino and is mentored by the charismatic tribal chairman, John Tovar.

Embraced by casino culture, Caroline works her way up to casino manager of the Night Hawk, in the High Desert town of Joshua Tree. There, she is responsible for managing multicultural team members, satisfying the demands of challenging guests, growing revenue while rooting out corruption.

In the process of rediscovering her inner strength, she learns, you have to gamble like your life depends on it. Because it often does.