Alessandra Selmi

Alessandra Selmi (1977) is the owner of the literary agency Lorem Ipsum, where she does scouting and editing. She teaches a master’s degree in publishing at the Catholic University in Milan.

Al di qua del fiume

(This Side of the River)

Casa Editrice Nord, August 2022

TOP TEN BESTSELLER LIST from day 1

2 editions in a week

100,000 copies sold!

English introduction available

At the dawn of the 1800s, on the banks of the River Adda, the Crespi family achieved an ambitious feat: they founded Italy’s first worker village. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hopes, drama, mystery, revenge, and love come together to form a grand historical fresco that encompasses fifty years of Italian history.

River Adda, 1877. Cristoforo Crespi sees a small triangle of land bounded by the river as the future and the chance his family needs to make an indelible mark upon this world. Thus, the son of a simple tengitt, a dyer, builds an avant-garde cotton mill and a village to house its workers. Italy has never seen such a thing: the village has its own church, school, and comfy homes with gardens. Cristoforo bets everything he has on this dream. His money, his reputation, and even his relationship with his brother Benigno, who has succumbed to the temptations of the high life in Milan and by the prestige of owning a newspaper. For Cristoforo, what matters most is to create something concrete and to change the life of his workers for the better.

Young Emilia’s life changes the day she moves into the new village. The daughter of one of Crespi’s most loyal workers and a woman tormented by dark premonitions, Emilia witnesses, from this side of the river, the creation of a self-sustaining world. She experiences the small and large events of Italian history: the 1989 bread riots, the First World War, the labor insurrections. But as fate would have it, her path soon crosses that of Silvio Crespi, heir to the company and to his father’s vision. Despite the socio-economic chasm that separates them, they develop a special relationship that stands the test of life and time.

Rights Sold

Brasil: Autêntica; France: Albin Michel; Holland: Bruna; World Spanish Rights: Planeta.

Audiovisual rights optioned.

Le origini del potere

(The Origins of Power)

Casa Editrice Nord, June 2020

The saga of the man who would become Julius II, the warrior Pope. He was the “enemy of the Borgias”. He lived among intrigues, forbidden love affairs and murders. Everything for a single objective: to become Pope.

For the readers of Matteo Strukul’s international bestseller “The Medicis”

August 1471. A young friar arrives in Rome and joins the rest of the population outside St Peter’s. Only he is not just anybody. He is Giuliano della Rovere, the nephew of the new Pope. And this is the first day of his new life, a day that will mark his fate: after witnessing the solemn coronation of his uncle, Giuliano is involved in a crazy whirlwind of celebrations in the city taverns, then risks death in an ambush before finding safety in the arms of an irresistibly alluring girl. This is Rome’s welcome to this humble young monk, who quickly learns his lesson. Only the strongest and most determined survive in the quagmire that is the Roman Curia. And so begins the ascent of Giuliano, who discovers that he has a burning ambition, equal only to his attraction for Lucrezia Normanni, the woman who will remain at his side for years to come, even bearing him a daughter. Years spent confronting his great adversary, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, and secretly plotting against the Florence Medicis. And all that to prepare for an inevitable event: the death of his uncle, the Pope, and the opening of the conclave. Here comes the opportunity to acquire absolute power. But Giuliano will discover that for the moment, destiny has other plans for him…

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