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Bologna, 1575.

A talented seamstress

A powerful merchant

A fierce battle of wills

Bologna, 1575. A talented seamstress. A powerful merchant. A fierce battle of wills.

Elena Morandi has gained a fragile foothold in a master tailor’s workshop, despite the profession being barred to women. But then Antonio della Fontana, a powerful man from her past, crosses her path and threatens everything she has built. Fontana has every corner of the city in his pocket and Elena knows all too well of his past abuses. Driven to fight for justice, she hatches a daring plan to get retribution for herself, a lost friend and his other victims.

The sights, sounds and textures of Renaissance Italy are brought to vivid life in this breathtaking historical fiction debut.

'I LOVED this. The characters sing. Bravo' - Sara Sheridan, author of The Fair Botanists

​he romantic canals of Venice and the sun-drenched olive groves of Puglia provide diverse Italian backdrops for this story of love and betrayal involving three very different women, toxic neighbours and two men with evil in mind.
Claudia, a survivor of an abusive marriage, dares to love again, but her ex-husband's vengeful threats force her to choose between her heart and her loved one's safety. Will she find the courage to overcome her past traumas and embrace a new future?
Meanwhile, Janet grapples with a choice between a luxurious lifestyle with her wealthy new lover or her independence.#
Can Olivia, a countess who lives in a grand palazzo in Venice, finally bring everyone together? In this engaging tale of love and betrayal, Dark Harvest is Orna O'Reilly's spectacular work of fiction, filled with drama, romance and suspense.

When Jess inherits a baglio, an ancient feudal farmhouse in Sicily, from the grandmother she never knew, she’s determined to uncover the truth about her family’s hidden past. Following the death of her parents and on the brink of divorce, Jess travels to the island alone. There, with the help of a charming Sicilian, she embarks on a quest to unearth a web of long-buried secrets.

But answers come at a price, and Jess must decide if she’s ready to confront a truth that could change everything…

Inspired by true events, this breathtaking novel reveals the hidden secrets of one Sicilian family across generations. 

​Alessia knows her grandmother grew up on the beautiful Italian island off the coast of Naples. But Ornella seldom talks about her life there – or why she never went back. So Alessia is amazed when Ornella reveals that, in the months before she left Ischia, she had worked on the set of a famous 1950s movie filmed on the island. Is there a link between the film set and the tragic death of Ornella’s teenage sister? Ornella has kept her past – and the heart-wrenching promise she made – a secret for over sixty years

‘My dearest Gaetano, if this letter reaches you, know that my heart remains under the Sicilian stars where we made our promise...’

Sicily, 1939. Seventeen-year-old Concetta has just received life-changing news: her family is leaving their sun-drenched Sicilian village and moving to America. Desperate to stay with her secret love Gaetano—a fisherman’s son her father would never accept—Concetta spends one last night with him beneath a blanket of stars. There, among the citrus-scented air and cricket song, he hands her a leaving gift: a fountain pen, with a promise to keep their love alive through letters – and return to each other one day.

​Abi is distraught when her ex-husband Alex takes their twelve-year-old daughter, Chloe to spend the summer with his glamorous fiancée Marisa and her parents at their home on the beautiful Italian island of Procida. Persuaded by her best friend to book a holiday at the island's Hotel Paradiso, Abi finally meets the woman she's been avoiding for so long. Will the two women's strained relationship survive the summer?

One-time teenage swimming sensation, Loretta, has run the Hotel Paradiso since leaving Capri broken-hearted. When childhood friend Salvo comes to stay, Loretta is forced to confront her past and the fears that have kept her away from the water for forty years. But just as she finds the courage to open her heart, she discovers all is not as it seems with Salvo...

It's a summer of new beginnings for Abi and Loretta - and one they will never forget. 

Italy 1949

At an orphanage in the poverty-stricken Apennine Mountains, 15-year-old Adelina has only one friend - enigmatic, fragile Elisabetta, 11.

When Elisabetta claims to see the Madonna by the river, Adelina has doubts. But after Elisabetta appears to heal a traumatised young soldier, Giulio, who starts to walk again without his stick, crowds flock to witness the mystery of Elisabetta’s miracles.

Adelina can no longer contain her misgivings and seeks out scheming priest, Padre Bosco. The secrets of the past begin to unravel, and Adelina, Elisabetta and Giulio each have to confront who or what to believe.

Soon they face a terrible reckoning which will cause deep ripples in all their lives, reaching across the years to 1990s England.

She's in love.
Just with the wrong man . . .

Nora is done with dating, but still dreams of finding the one. So when a handsome stranger comes to her rescue one night and vanishes leaving only a business card, it's like a scene out of a romcom . . .

It doesn't take long for the two to 'bump' into each other again, and Nora falls for the perfect-on-paper Gabe. Only a few weeks later, he invites her to Sicily, and she cannot believe her luck!

Until Gabe is forced away for work, leaving her alone with his big and warm family in gorgeous Sicily who welcome her with open arms. Everyone but Luca, his older and distrustful brother, who is always around.
 

Florence, 1584. Rumours are spreading about the virility of a prince marrying into the powerful Medici family. Orphan Giulia is chosen to put an end to the gossip. In return she will keep her life - and start a new one with a dowry and her own husband. Cloistered since childhood and an innocent in a world ruled by men, Giulia reluctantly agrees, only to be drawn under the control of the Medicis' lecherous minister.

Years later, married and with a growing family, Giulia hopes she has finally escaped the legacy of her past. But when a threat arrives from a sinister figure from her youth, she must finally take control of events - and become the author of her own story.

Based on true events, The Maiden of Florence gives a charismatic voice to a woman cast aside by history.

 My Modena is a hilarious memoir of the year she and her family spent in Modena Italy. Modena, an Italian city that frustrated her every attempt to do the simplest things. Buying a stamp shouldn't be this complicated. Living in an apartment that was like camping, with tile and nowhere to sit. Modena is a town full of ancient churches and beautiful Italians.

Here you will meet her friend Melanie, a fashionista who can make ATM's bend to her will from across the country. You will also meet her landlady Giovanna and her husband Raimondo who watched as six firefighters tried to get Andrea and her family back into their 7th floor apartment, using a ladder truck.

You'll also meet Piero the artist, Luca who sold boots, and let us not forget Danilo, Fabio (of the soon to be famous Fabio's balcony), and Marcello, heart-stoppingly gorgeous Italians all.

Before 11 priceless pieces of art were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a respected Italian violin maker visited the museum to inspect a rare musical instrument requiring restoration. He took measurements and photographs and reported his findings to the museum’s director.

Then, he disappeared.

Was the innocent invitation to the violin maker the first step in a complex plot to rob the Gardner? The museum director thinks so and hires Theo R. Perdoux, an expert in worldwide art thefts, to investigate.

Inspired by real events, an unforgettable story of love, courage and sacrifice to save a country’s heritage.

Italy 1943. As the Allies bomb Milan, Elena Marchetti reluctantly gives up her coveted job as an art curator in the city to return to her family farm near Urbino. She takes up a new role assisting Pasquale Rotondi, the Superintendent of Arts in the region, in protecting works of art from all over Italy that have been hidden in the relative safety of the countryside.

At a family celebration, Elena reunites with Luca, a close childhood friend. A shattering event instigated by the occupying Germans deepens their relationship, and they start planning a life together. When rumours surface that Italy’s art is being stolen by the German occupiers, Pasquale hatches an audacious plan to rescue the priceless paintings in his possession. Elena and Luca are forced to make an impossible decision: will they embark on a dangerous mission to save Italy’s cultural heritage?

Drawing on their diverse Italian and Italian-Australian heritages, the authors delve into folklore, family stories, critical research, and fantasy to bring narratives into, and out of, the imaginarium of the dark. In the process, we come to understand how light and dark have been pitted against each other as opposing forces of good and evil, safety and danger. Instead, motherly female deities representing night and Black Madonna’s of antiquity are reclaimed and celebrated as powerful figures of life, love and nurturing they were historically revered for. Madri, zie, and nonne are recalled for their power to both remove il malocchio, the evil eye and soothe troubled brows. .

A second chance to realise her dreams...A classically trained pianist, Steph works as a recording engineer for a small studio when she’s offered the job of a lifetime–travel to the Italian Riviera to help world-famous band, Royalty, record their reunion album after a decades-long hiatus. Steph could definitely do with the distraction. Her boyfriend–who also happens to be her boss–is increasingly unreliable and erratic, and she’s awaiting news from her doctor after a recent biopsy. So an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy is the perfect escape. What she doesn’t expect is an instant connection with, the son of Royalty’s lead singer. With her career–and her heart–at a crossroads, what path will Steph follow?

Italy, 1940. The girl sobs and rages as her father tells her the terrible news. “Italy is entering the war alongside Germany. Jews are to be arrested and sent to camps. We have to be ready.”
As fascists march across the cobbled piazzas and past the towered buildings of her beloved home city, 20-year-old Devora’s worst fears come true. Along with her Jewish parents and twin little brothers they are torn away from everything they love and sent to an internment camp huddled in the mountains. Her father promises this war will not last long....
When they are offered a miraculous chance of escape by her childhood friend Luigi, who risks everything to smuggle vital information into the camp, the family clambers under barbed wire and races for the border. But Devora is forced to make a devastating choice between saving a stranger’s life and joining her parents. As shots fire in the moonless night, the family is separated.

Jenn has always prided herself on being a city girl – she insists on easy access to good coffee, great food from around the globe, not to mention an easy commute. So, when her job takes her to one of the most famous Italian wine regions in search of the perfect Prosecco, travelling to meetings on a tractor is a bit of a culture shock.
Tiziano hates the city. He was made for the mountains and vineyards of Veneto, and generations of his family have earned their living from the land. But times are changing even in the Italian countryside, and the arrival of Jenn at his grandmother’s B&B opens up a window on a different world.

An American divorcée. An Italian shepherdess. Separated by a century, united by common dreams

The sleepy little Abruzzo mountain town of Marsicano seems about as far as Samantha can flee from her failed marriage and disastrous university career. Eager for a fresh start, Samantha begins to set down roots in her Italian mountain hideaway.
At first, the mountain retreat appears idyllic, but an outsider’s clumsy attempts at breaking into the closed mountain community are quickly thwarted when the residents discover Samantha’s snarky blog ridiculing the town and its inhabitants.
Increasingly isolated in her mountain cottage, Samantha discovers the letters and diaries of Elena, a past tenant and a survivor of the 1915 Pescina earthquake. Despite the century that separates the two women, Samantha feels increasingly drawn into Elena’s life, and discovers startling parallels with her own.

Fate brought them together, now it’s up to them to make it work…
Having left the army to recover from a traumatic experience, Captain Jane Reed is on her way to Venice to assist Lady Veronica Cooper, a world-famous writer who has lost her mojo. Plagued by grief and sleepless nights, Jane soon finds a kindred spirit in Veronica, coping with her own loss after the death of her husband. Can Jane and Veronica's son David help each other heal, and find love in the process, or are some scars too deep to treat?

Graham takes you by the hand as you join him on his journey as a Brit into the everyday world of Umbria. The journey vividly shows his day-to-day life as a part-time visitor, immersion into the local community, his experiences and the colourful characters that become friends on the way.

Il Mulino. An old crumbling mill, by a winding river, nestled in the Tuscan mountains. An empty home that holds memories of homemade pasta and Nonna’s stories by the fire, and later: the Nazi invasion, and a family torn apart by a heartbreaking betrayal.

Inspector Beppe Stancato, newly appointed commissario in the town of Pescara, in Abruzzo, just prior to the earthquake which struck the mountain capital city of L'Aquila in 2009. The intriguing plot has many twists and turns, leading to a tense climax. The story is laced with humour and exalts the spectacular scenery and cuisine of this region of Central Italy.

Without warning or explanation, an unnamed 13-year-old girl is sent away from the family she has always thought of as hers to live with her birth family: a large, chaotic assortment of individuals whom she has never met and who seem anything but welcoming. Thus begins a new life, one of struggle, tension, and conflict, especially between the young girl and her mother. But in her relationship with Adriana and Vincenzo, two of her newly acquired siblings, she will find the strength to start again and to build a new and enduring sense of self

Lottie Archer arrives in Rome excited to begin her new job as an archivist. When she discovers a valuable fifteenth-century painting, she is drawn to find out more about the woman who left it behind, Nina Lawrence. 
Nina seems to have led a rewarding and useful life, restoring Italian gardens to their full glory following the destruction of World War Two. So why did no one attend her funeral in 1978? 
In exploring Nina's past, Lottie unravels a tragic love story beset by the political turmoil of post-war Italy. And as she edges closer to understanding Nina, she begins to confront the losses in her own life.

Whether you're looking for designer labels within the city's luxury fashion district, prefer to browse the city's boutiques or pick up some quality vintage at the city's vintage shops and markets, this is the guide that will tell you where to go. Split into geographical sections along with relevant maps, cultural highlights and suggestions for where to eat and drink, it places Milan as the city of fashion within the context of Italian fashion history and a city and brings the stories of its people to life

Italy is full of idyllic hilltop towns teeming with centuries of history. Soriano nel Cimino, located in the Tuscia region of Lazio is one of those. On June 5, 1944, the day after Rome was liberated, this small town was nearly destroyed by Allied bombing. In 1994 for the 50th anniversary of the bombing, first-hand testimonies were collected and printed by some of the survivors and made available in Italian. This book contains those same testimonies of devastation, resilience, strength, and re-birth translated into English. 

 Zoë couldn't shake the unsettling sense of feeling 'half-and-half' - half Australian, ‘mezza italiana’ - unable to fit fully into either culture, or merge the two. Years later, she travels to her family's ancestral village of Fossa in Abruzzo and discovers a captivating place of medieval castles, mystics, serpent charmers and witches. 

The year is 1910. Fifty years after Italy’s unification. The southern regions remain destitute, the peasants left with nothing. Living in the remote mountains of Abruzzo, Anselmo Scipioni knows he can either risk starvation or emigrate to America like millions of others.

A wonderful collection of over 150 recipes for conserves, pickles, infusions, sauces, which capture the flavours of Italy. It is beautifully presented with a personal note to introduce each recipe, suggestions for how to use what you preserve, comprehensive instructions and illustrated with excellent photographs. 

A heart-warming story of a chef’s journey from the hills of Abruzzo to the heart of Soho. Aldo Zilli has been a major player in the world of celebrity chefs, appearing regularly on both television and radio as presenter and chef for four decades

Hardy Durkin leads a hiking tour into Italy's Abruzzo region where they experience the area's culture, food, and history. There is a good deal of exposure to the region's religious and spiritual past, and one of the tour group's members struggles with an odyssey of the soul that ends in redemption

In this delightful, moving novel, Peter Pezzelli brings to life the earthy sensuality of Italy's Abruzzo region— the smell of just-baked bread wafting through the village piazza; the shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalks first thing in the morning; groups of cyclists dotting the mountain roads—and spins a story of May-December romance as sharp and delicious as the olives of Villa San Giuseppe.

Angela Di Sciascio's father can no longer describe his past, lost in a world ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease. Deciding not to let his story fade, Angela embarks on a voyage that takes her through four seasons in her father’s Italy, reconnecting to her ancestry and absorbing all of its chaos, beauty and style.

In 1943, Mussolini is deposed and taken to a secret location. But in London, Winston Churchill is troubled. The only thing that can head off a Communists takeover is to put Mussolini back in power. Naturally, Churchill cannot be seen to arrange such a thing.

Could Churchill's agents persuade Hitler's forces to rescue Mussolini?  The plot culminates in a daring, near-impossible glider-raid on a skiing hotel on Gran Sasso, the highest peak in the Apennine Mountains.