Cara Bertoia

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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

Growing up in a strait-laced Southern family, I was always fascinated with casinos. In my twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, I drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. Well, I can tell you that after teaching high school, handling an unruly gambler was a piece of cake. My mother highly disapproved of my working in a casino, "a place so bad it has 'sin' in the middle." I wanted to write the first realistic novel about casino life from the perspective of an experienced table games dealer. I spent the next five years circling the globe for Princess Cruises. Sometimes life exceeds your dreams. I was awed by the wonders of Venice, the fjords of Norway, and the Northern Lights in Leningrad. I returned from ships with a very special souvenir, my Scottish husband Ray. We went to work in Palm Springs. We now live in Hollywood, Florida, where I write about my casino years while wistfully gazing out at the ocean.

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.

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

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

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!

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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:

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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

'GIRLS' NEED A BASIC STRATEGY OF LOVE

I am a people junkie, I want to know what makes them tick. Why do they do the things they do? Why do they fall in and out of love? Now we need to talk about Girls, the new HBO series. I love it but I will add a warning here it may not be to everyone's taste because it is very graphic. Just like the wonderful British series, Pulling, it is a tale about women in their twenties, trying to find their place in the real world.

HBO GIRLS

I don't know how they did it but the show manages to make sex seem pretty unappealing. My husband says it's almost enough to put you off porn, because we all know that sex with the wrong person sucks, whether you are twenty or sixty. But it brought me back to that terrifying time when life is full of possibilities and fraught with loose connections. I dated guys like Adam, when I didn't know if he was my boyfriend or not, but I was too afraid to ask. I also dated guys like Charlie, who I promptly dumped because they were too nice. Sometimes a bad haircut was all it would take and once a guy gut dumped for bringing me a single rose, a very nice gesture.

In my twenties I was teaching school, 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 Girls take some shortcuts, but probably not, we all have to suffer our own heart breaks. Girls need 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 one leave a comment here or e-mail me at carabertoia@yahoo.com.

Click here for CRUISE QUARTERS

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. Never go to bed with someone if you aren’t sure he will be there in the morning, and you want him to be there.

9. 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.

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.

About the author:

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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 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 to find Cruise Quarters at Barnes and Noble

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

THE LADIES ARE NOT ONLY HOT IN CLEVELAND

To continue my post about going to see top entertainment in the Los Angeles area without spending a dime. As I said in my last post, to go see a taping, the best site on the Internet for free tickers is www.audiencesunlimited.com but in all my trips to the website I had never seen tickets for Hot in Cleveland, so when I saw them offered I snatched them up.

Hot in Cleveland is funny, silly and corny, just the humor I can relate to. My novel Cruise Quarters is all about dating and romance on a cruise ship so a show about four single women is right up my alley.

The list of actresses on this show is like a comedienne's hall of fame. Now I know my descriptions of these actresses will be redundant to most of you but I do have readers across the globe and they might have some catching up to do. These are the people we all grew up with. Jane Leeves, Niles crush on Frazier, sweet and pretty with that adorable British accent. Valerie Bertinelli, Americas darling from One Day At A Time, lived the rock star dream marrying and then divorcing Eddie Van Halen. Wendie Malick from Just Shoot Me, she gave narcissism a good name. She may not have married a rock star but Huey Lewis plays her on again off again lover on Hot in Cleveland. Then, we have the spectacular Betty White, Mary Tyler Moore where she played the tasty cook show host, to the Golden Girls where she was the hapless Minnesotan. She gets more action on this show than the rest of the girls because she is the immortal Betty White.

We arrived at the studio a few hours early to scope the parking situation out. We were going to return later but a line had already formed. We talked to some people in line and they advised us not to leave. Even though you might have a ticket to Hot In Cleveland, if you weren't among the first to arrive you might not get in to see the show. Apparently, this was the hottest ticket in town, so we parked the car and chatted with a diverse group who spend all of their time catching the latest tapings. One of the girls next to me was a script writing student from UCLA. Her assignment was to watch a real taping of a show.

Well, I am happy to report that two hours later we made it and took our spots as 'audience laughers'. The guests that night were a Jonas brother and Jennifer Love Hewitt. The Ladies did not let me down. They were beautiful, funny and sexy. They seemed to be having a great time, laughing at their flubbed lines the outtakes alone could have filled a blooper reel. But that is what makes a live taping so special. Ray and I couldn't decide who was funnier, Betty White or Wendie Malick, but lets fact it the narcissist delivers all the best lines.

Everything played out like our previous tapings. Before the show the warm up comic told jokes, the interns served sandwiches, and we laughed until our jaws hurt. The show makes all women want to move to Cleveland, where there seems to be an endless supply of available handsome men, that sure would have improved my dating life. But if you can't make it to Cleveland, you can visit the girls in Burbank.

About the author: