About Author

Lenny Cavallaro

Lenny Cavallaro
  • Genre:

    Mystery Contemporary Romance Dark Romance & Erotica Literary Fiction
  • Country: United States
  • Books: 3
  • Profession: Editor, Musician, Teacher, Writer
  • Member Since: Jul 2022
  • Profile Views: 6,512
  • Followers: 63
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BIOGRAPHY

Lenny Cavallaro is a “Renaissance man” steeped in the classics: Greek tragedy, Shakespearean drama, and classical music. He has also boxed, earned a third-degree black belt in karate, refereed futsal and soccer, run marathons, and practiced hypnosis and reiki professionally.
 
Cavallaro is the author of TROJAN DIALOGUES: THE MEMOIRS OF DIOMEDES and THE GREATEST CHAMPION WHO NEVER WAS. His interests in Shakespeare and Sophocles spawned two dramatic efforts, the one-act HAMLET, REVISITED and ODYSSEUS ACANTHOPLEX, a conjectural “completion” of fragments by the great Greek tragedian.
 
Cavallaro has recently completed SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIES OF THE CHESS WORLD (Russell Enterprises) and “edited and revised” PAGANINI AGITATO (Fomite Press), a novel by Ann Abelson. Both are slated for release in 2022.
 
An accomplished pianist and composer, Cavallaro performed Bach’s SIX PARTITAS to the highest critical acclaim in Carnegie Recital Hall and achieved even more recognition as a composer. In 2015, he wrote a conjectural "completion" of "Contrapunctus XIV" from Bach's unfinished masterpiece, THE ART OF THE FUGUE.

Lenny Cavallaro's Books

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Book
Cursed Love (The Passion of Elena Bianchi)
Free kindleeBook,
Cursed Love (The Passion of Elena Bianchi)by Lenny CavallaroPublish: Mar 15, 2022Historical Romance Paranormal Romance Literary Fiction
If Music Be the Food of Love
$2.99 kindle Free with KU
If Music Be the Food of Loveby Lenny CavallaroPublish: Jan 25, 2022Series: THE PASSION OF ELENA BIANCHIContemporary Romance Erotic Romance Literary Fiction
Paradise Regained and Lost Again
$2.99 kindle Free with KUeBook, Paperback,
Paradise Regained and Lost Againby Lenny CavallaroPublish: May 24, 2022Series: THE PASSION OF ELENA BIANCHIContemporary Romance Romantic Suspense Erotic Romance Dark Romance & Erotica Literary Fiction

Lenny Cavallaro's Series in Order

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  • THE PASSION OF ELENA BIANCHI

    1 If Music Be the Food of Love - Published on Jan, 20222 Paradise Regained and Lost Again - Published on May, 2022

Lenny Cavallaro Interview On 25, Nov 2022

"Lenny Cavallaro grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. He studied with a number of outstanding pedagogues and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and literature. He has served on the English and/or music faculties of several colleges in New England. Cavallaro’s first novel was Trojan Dialogues: The Memoirs of Diomedes, an audacious retelling of the Trojan War. He has also boxed, and earned a third-degree black belt in karate."
Where have you spent most of your childhood? Tell us a bit about your childhood and when you were first bitten by the writing bug.

I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut. I had little interest in creative writing during childhood and adolescence, although my mother was an author and had had novels published by Harcourt and Random House.

What did being an author mean to you as a child? What does it mean to you now?

I admired those who wove a great tale, and Mark Twain was probably my favorite. I also fell in love with both Shakespeare and the Greek epics, notably the Iliad, and was exposed to Greek drama at a fairly early age.

What made you decide to write romance? What is one misconception that many people have about this genre?

Given the cross-genre aspects of my series, I might perhaps address numerous misconceptions people have. Fiction may be used as a vehicle through which to present spiritual concepts, as I do in the later (as yet unpublished) volumes. I develop the idea of “soul fractions,” a rather obscure notion of reincarnation.

Perhaps more noteworthy, though, are my efforts to present sadomasochism in a very different light. As one of my characters articulates, some people make love through the medium of pain. I should add that while Fifty Shades is mere fantasy, the “scenes” described in my series (mostly the first two volumes) are quite real. Perhaps some might deem someone like Elena a “pervert,” but she is remarkably accomplished, honest, honorable, talented, and spiritual, as are many within the “kink scene.” She and Giovanni are also wonderfully nurturing and supportive parents (for those concerned about “family values”).

If you could describe your book "If Music Be the Food of Love" in three words, what would they be? Do you love music? [Can we change that to If Music Be the Food of Love and the entire series, The Passion of Elena Bianchi?]

The romance is: (1) dark-erotic (with hard-core kink), (2) paranormal (with a personified Curse), (3) spiritual (with a message of acceptance of karma, forgiveness, and letting go of anger and disappointment).

Who inspired the character of Giovanni and who would play him in a live action adaptation?

In many ways, Giovanni is a reflection of me, although our life stories also differ dramatically. However, the beautiful song (“Canzona a Maria”) his father wrote is in fact the title of a song MY father wrote, and it figures prominently in the series.

I no longer watch movies and almost never watch television, so I really have no idea who might portray Giovanni on screen.

How did Reiki transform your life?

I cannot appraise the “transformation,” but Reiki is a valid healing modality, and I have seen marvelous, inexplicable results, even with remote sessions (via Skype).

What inspired the idea behind "Cursed Love”? What was the best review you got for this book?

My protagonists, Giovanni and Elena, are under a curse (that personified Curse, capital “C”). Elena, who becomes a psychic (in addition to a marvelous musician), learns about some of the other lives she and Giovanni have shared, beginning from the 1st century. Among the victims was Beethoven, who was unable to marry the ill-fated Josephine von Brunsvick. [Hers was a truly tragic story, worthy of a novel!] Even after her first husband died, she could not marry the composer, because Beethoven was a commoner, and her late husband’s family would then have demanded custody of her four children. In “Cursed Love,” I create a fictitious incident in which a Roma fortune-teller tells Beethoven about the Curse but tells him to write the music (his famous “Kreutzer” Sonata for Violin and Piano) that will unite the lovers who will ultimately defeat the Curse.

Does karate work in the street?

It is doubtless quite effective for the top practitioners, though not as much so for the “hobbyists.” Krav Maga and MMA are probably better in the streets.

Have you ever written a character based on a stranger you saw in public? How do you usually create your characters (from real life people or entirely from your imagination)?

My other published fiction: a novel based on the Trojan War, a novella about a bare-knuckle boxing champion, and most recently Sherlock Holmes and the Mysteries of the Chess World. With The Passion of Elena Bianchi, some of the characters are loosely based on people I know, not strangers. However, the adverb, “loosely,” is the key word here. For example, I had a very wealthy aunt who had residences in both Naples and along the Amalfi Coast, but she was by no means the model for Giovanni’s Aunt Sofia. So, too, many of the actual episodes—musical and sexual—are drawn from personal experiences (or those of friends): often “loosely,” though at times more directly.

Are you a self-taught pianist or a pianist who had lessons? What are the pros and cons?

I studied with a number of outstanding pedagogues and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance and literature. I was a top prizewinner in the J. S. Bach International Competition for Pianists and later played that composer’s Six Partitas to the highest acclaim in Carnegie Recital Hall. I have since gravitated toward composition, with eleven volumes of published work.

On the other hand, I have met some extremely gifted pianists who were almost entirely self-taught, including some who did not even read music. I cheerfully concede that they could perform magnificently in their genres and idioms, though I have severe doubts they could ever perform major concerti with orchestras (or Bach’s Partitas). However, some played entirely by ear—and far better than I ever could!

How do you write an engaging beginning to the first book in a series?

This is always a challenge, because of the pressure to “grab the reader with the first twenty-five words” (or something like that). I originally began with the start of Giovanni’s memoirs, but I realized that the passages about how the Curse was poised to strike them (cf., Prologue) would be far more effective.

Out of all the books you've written, which scene/phrase/character are you proudest of? Have you ever written a scene you loved but had to cut out because it didn't fit the flow of the story?

I think Elena’s triumph with the performance of Bach’s cantata, Christ Lag in Todesbanden, has some remarkable writing about music. Similarly, the as-yet-unpublished scenes in which Giovanni coaches his daughter and her friend have been praised by beta readers. I must also note the German SS Captain, the psychopath who engineers the horrors that bring If Music Be the Food of Love to a tragic climax.

I have been obliged to cut scenes, simply because they had no relevance to the broader picture. My plots are tightly woven, and even minor details—e.g., how one of Giovanni’s earlier girlfriends teaches him how to make French toast, omelettes, and pancakes—becomes significant in later volumes. A few episodes, alas, “did not make the cut”!

What are some important things you try to remember as an author so that you don't get discouraged from writing new stories?

First and foremost: writing is a labor of love. At my age, I shall not have a high-powered agent muscling my manuscripts to the “Big Five” in New York. I am consigned to tiny houses and/or self-publishing, and even a few hundred sales may be out of reach. As the joke says, “When my book was accepted, I thought about buying a new car, but once the royalties were counted, I had barely enough for an oil change.”

Second: The “game” is quite different these days. Pedestrian prose by rather ignorant writers may do far better than my best efforts, simply because they understand marketing and networking, have huge email lists, do the “newsletter thing,” podcast, etc. I am an abysmal failure at self-promotion, and can only hope that someone will take the job off my hands (without bleeding me dry, of course).

Finally: Reviews are tricky under the best of circumstances. Someone I don’t even know sent me an excellent review she had posted on Amazon. Two days later, Amazon took it down: no reason given! We aren’t supposed to pay for reviews (e.g., $450 to Kirkus), and then we may get assaulted by various trolls, who sometimes give a book a blank, one-star evaluation for no reason whatsoever. My advice: "get used to it."

What are some of your upcoming projects?

Evelyn Byrne-Kusch, who ran White Bird Publications, released If Music Be the Food of Love and Paradise Regained and Lost Again, but she then died unexpectedly. However, the other books are "ready to go," and I intend to self-publish the remaining volumes of The Passion of Elena Bianchi between December (2022) and March (2023).

The Passion of Elena Bianchi (If Music Be the Food of Love, Paradise Regained and Lost Again, and the unpublished volumes) draws to a large extent upon my Italian roots, and most of the series takes place in Italy. I have more recently turned to my Jewish roots and completed (and submitted to a publisher) The Ibbur’s Tale, an unusual “tragicomedy” about an ibbur—a benevolent spirit that engages in what might be termed “possession” of a living person in order to complete an unfinished task.

I have begun sketching other projects, including a possible sequel to George Bataille’s The Story of the Eye. I also self-published Two Oedipal Plays—a one-act Hamlet (with a very strange plot twist) and the conjectural completion of Odysseus Acanthoplex, a drama by Sophocles of which only fragments remain.

And, of course, I remain a musician and hope to write more music for English horn and piano. I have also set two of Robert Frost’s poems to music and hope to add a few more.

How long have you been with AllAuthor and what has your experience been like?

I believe we went “live” in August. I have LOVED enjoyed retweeting all the marvelous posters AllAuthor has made for me! Sales, alas, remain flat: probably my own fault.

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