Showing results by narrator "Amalia Vitale" in All Categories

Italy, 1943. For Carmela del Bosco, a farm girl in a remote Italian village, sheltering an English spy is the most dangerous thing she could do. If she’s caught by the fascists, it would be the end, especially for her beloved grandmother sleeping soundly upstairs. But taking in the pleading brown eyes of the man calling himself Sebastiano slumped at her door, and his terrible injuries inflicted by the Nazi occupiers, Carmela remembers how Nonna always taught her right from wrong. Risking everything, she hides him in a ruined tower on the edge of the farm.

As the smoke from the bonfire spirals into the night sky and the cool drinks slip down our throats, none of us can take our eyes off Lacey. Everyone who is close to Lacey sits by the smoky fire. Her adoring boyfriend, who holds onto her, perhaps a little too tightly. Her little sister, always in Lacey’s shadow, sifting fine soft sand through her fingers, never taking her eyes off Lacey. And me. When the fire burns out, we stumble away from the beach, along the cliff path—faces burned by the wind, hearts full of secrets. But Lacey never makes it home.

The vacation house is a luxurious getaway for a wealthy English family, windows open to sun and the sea, a sparkling swimming pool, and a verdant garden. One hot summer night, while the parents and their friends drink wine and amuse themselves, a young woman—the teenage daughter of the Greek caretaker—ventures for a walk on their private beach. Her life will never be the same again.

Beatrice is the convent's librarian. For years, she has shunned the company of her sisters, finding solace only with her manuscripts. Then, one carnival night, two women, bleeding and stricken, are abandoned outside the convent's walls. Moments from death, one of them presses something into Beatrice's hands: a bewitching book whose pages have a dangerous life of their own.

Julia is the perfect spouse, mother, cook, cleaner and speech writer to her husband, James. But behind it all is a stifled woman trapped in a gilded cage. When she meets Laurel, a therapist who promises fulfilment, Julia opens herself up to the hope of a different future. But what happened in Greece all those years ago that binds these two women together? And will uncovering the truth destroy everything…or set them free?