I’m feeling awfully cosmopolitan today. The Italian translation of Curse of the Kissing Cousins is up on the web site for Delos Books’s Odissea line, which has given me my first peek at the cover.

I really like this. It’s a very different look and feel from the Berkley Prime Crime edition, and the Five Star version, and I consider myself sublimely lucky to have received three good covers for one book.

When Wolfsbane and Mistletoe came out recently in German, I blogged about the intricacies of translating, and it’s no less fascinating to me in Italian. Take the title, Cugini Maledetti, which I’m told means “cursed cousins” or perhaps “killing cousins.” The phrase “kissing cousins” is American idiom, maybe even English, but definitely not Italian. How the rest of the story will translate is a mystery to me, and I look forward to holding a copy in my hot little hand.

In the meantime, I will admire the cover and also a video that Delos Books put onto Youtube. Again, I can’t understand what they’re saying, but it’s great fun to hear “Toni Kelner” and “Tilda Harper” spoken in the midst of all the Italian. My bit is about a minute and a quarter into the video, by the way. But if you continue to watch afterward, you’ll hear editor Luigi Pachí talking about other releases, including my BFF Charlaine Harris’s latest Italian release. (They even show a picture of Charlaine.)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqDdnxwp8J0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

I don’t know why they used old soap opera footage for the backup, but since the show in the book is fictional, they couldn’t very well use Kissing Cousins footage. I’m not sure, but I think this footage is of Mary Beth Evans in Days of Our Lives.

Cugini Maledetti is my translated novel, so this is a momentous event for me. It’s also the best excuse to visit an Italian restaurant that I’ve ever had.

Ciáo!