Hooray For Holland!

I’m not sure how many of you read the comments posted to my blog (for that matter I’m not sure how many of you read my blog) but I urge you to check out the comment on the Bouncing Baby Book entry. The poster is an editor at Harlequin Holland and it looks like Sex, Murder And A Double Latte will be picked up for the Netherlands!

I can not tell you how much this thrills me. The very idea that a book I wrote could entertain people on an entirely different continent and will be translated into a language that I don’t even speak is absolutely too exciting for words.

Plus I like Holland. Right after my eighteenth birthday a friend of mine who was on a vaulting team (that would be gymnastics on horseback) invited me to accompany her team to Holland where they would compete. Afterwards we would backpack around Europe. Well what self-respecting teenager would say no to an opportunity like that? So off to the Netherlands we went. We initially stayed with a family who lived in a small country town. It was there that I was introduced to salty licorice and the wonders of Nutella.

I remember being amazed by how even the landscape was. You could look in all directions without seeing so much as a bump, let alone a hill. This was particularly odd for me since I had been living in San Francisco, a city whose hills are the bane of many a stick-shift-drivers existence.

But what really touched me were the people. The family we stayed with, the people we met in restaurants and bars—they were all so incredibly kind and hospitable (kamikaze bicyclists aside). It didn’t matter if we were in a small town or a large city, the generous spirit of the citizens of that country was always palpable. Of course there’s probably a fair number of mean Dutch people out there. I have vague memories of some obnoxious men in the pubs but I was so excited about being legally able to enter a bar at 18 that I didn’t let any of them faze me---I was too busy being cool.

There turned out to be a lot more to Amsterdam then the hash brownies and red-light-district-prostitutes you always hear about. It’s an architecturally stunning, sophisticated, multicultural city and in many ways it reminded me of San Francisco.

My friend and I ended up spending months in Europe and we traveled to eight different countries all together. Paris was beautiful, Barcelona was a blast, Prague was magical, but nowhere did I feel more comfortable then I did in the cities within Holland’s borders.

So here’s to Holland. I hope you enjoy Sophie Katz and her friends. I know you’ll make them feel at home.

--Kyra
www.kyradavis.com
Sex, Murder And A Double Latte