Books By Cindy
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Italian Spices: a memoir
Italian Spices: A Memoir is a small book beginning when I was 12 and meeting cousins, Aunts, magnificent art, fabulous food and different customs. What it was like to fly in 1960 from Manchester NH to Rome Italy during post war reconstruction. To live where I didn't know the language. To look at history and cemeteries of Americans and feel pride. It began with my parents romance which culminated in marriage after only 3 weeks and lasted 67 years. And demonstrates my love for this family and the joy of melding our cultures. Recipes spice up the book as well as humor.
The Farmhouse On Cemetery Hill Rd
A young couple purchases an historic home in rural Connecticut near the University where the husband has just joined the faculty. He is obsessed with his research on multiple personality disorders while she is focused on restoration and the history of their home. They have just begun to settle in when several seemingly inexplicable occurrences change their dream into a nightmare.
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Beginning with the grisly death of their pet cat and the discovery of a child’s tombstone in the backyard, the wife explores a cascade of mysteries. She seeks assistance from an elderly neighbor, an antique dealer, and the local church that has its origins tied to the town. From the church she receives a diary begun in the early 1800s which leads her to incredible and sometimes horrifying discoveries. The local woman also knows of deaths and curses inflicted upon her house due to the misdeeds of the original owner.
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Our protagonist explores graveyards and archaic records in an attempt to answer many questions. Some of the issues are long hidden lies told two hundred years before to protect the sins of a clergyman, while others are contemporary, involving the mental illness of a neighbor who remains at large in the area. At times it appears that the husband may be “gas lighting” his wife and could himself have a multiple personality disorder. At other times it appears that the husband’s graduate assistant may be out to do the couple harm.
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There is always an undercurrent of the supernatural at work in this home, and a hatching of Goliath Bird Eating Spiders in the cellar, while the near death of a workman, helps to build this possibility. Between fires and the delusional thinking of a man living hidden on the property, this book is a page turner that will either keep you up late at night reading or worrying about what will happen next.
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The story ends as the pandemic is unfolding.
The Portal
The Portal is the widely loved and anticipated sequel to The Farmhouse on Cemetery Hill Rd. (may read separately): An historical novel where actual history is as strange as fiction. It blends the supernatural with reality in a fast paced mystery of a family in two eras, crossing thresholds of time and space through the portrait of a Civil War soldier, surprises from the graveside, and struggles to appease ghosts of the past; trying to keep promises made to the dead, doing what is right for emancipation and striving to survive multiple perils. Linda Hoitt, Southern California writes “An excellent read, could not put it down”; Larry Maurice, Hillsborough, New Hampshire “So glad there was a sequel and I’m hoping for more”; Bruno Tomassini, Latina, Italia “I cannot wait to get my copy, even in English”; Jan Novak, Melbourne, Australia, “I’ve been waiting for this since The Farmhouse.”
At the end of The Portal we watch perplexed and horrified as the Giant Goliath Spiders make their way down the dark road from Cemetery Hill burial grounds with Grace’s coffin silhouetted by the moonlight. This is the story of Grace’s anguished return to the farmhouse and to life. What factors conspire to bring this child back from the dead and what challenges must she overcome just to live? And it is also the story of Grace and the girl next door who are both victimized by the same man who has always preyed upon what he believes are weaker beings.
But Grace’s experiences have led to her possessing unusual powers. She evolves into the type of person who cannot be abused and remain helpless. Grace takes justifiable action regardless of the strength of the perpetrator. She extracts the ultimate revenge for herself and her friend. There is, as always, an ending which the reader will not see coming or wish to miss.
This book is written as part three of a trilogy beginning with The Farmhouse on Cemetery Hill Road followed by The Portal and concluding with this story AH, Grace! Cynthia Herbert-Bruschi Adams has also recently published Italian Spices: A Memoir.
A portion of all profit will go to The Wounded Warriors Project for paperbacks of "The Red Toque Love and Loss in the Time of Tito" sold on Amazon.
