A novel about relationships, in which two sisters make peace in order to unveil the mystery of a lost mother and a broken family.

Nora doesn’t recognise anyone at her father’s funeral. After all, she hasn’t been in touch with any of these people, old friends and relatives, for over forty years, except for her sister Apolline. It is to them that the solicitor appointed to read the will entrusts a diary written by their mother about what happened after she ran away from the family. Devastated by the discovery of so many details concerning their parents, the daughters decide to follow the woman’s tracks. A moving journey between present and past in order to close a circle and discover that some bonds are so strong that they survive any abandonment.

pp.192

Three generations of women untangle a complex family story to bring to light a secret that could change the present completely…

French version available

Catherine, a quiet middle class woman, leaves Milano after finding out her husband has cheated on her yet again and moves to Paris with her daughter Luna to stay with her anti conformist eighty-six year old mother Christiane.

In Paris, Luna, who is writing a thesis on the teaching methods of Rudolph Steiner, discovers by chance that her great grandfather was a follower of Steiner’s. She therefore asks her grandmother to tell her more about their family. Christiane tells her a story that will bring to light complex and fascinating events, contradictory and painful memories, which will give a new significance to their past. The three women’s present life will be enlightened by these facts and will change because once the masks are off, the good people will become more worrying than the bad.

pp.240

The drama of Chechnya and a great love story

Full French version available

Madina is a young Chechen terrorist. Her parents died during the Russian bombing of Grozny, in 2000. Trained by her uncle and forced to make an attack in the centre of Moscow, at the very last minute she refuses and gets herself free of her explosive belt, which will anyway cause one victim: a policeman, for whose death she will be jailed. Her lawyer’s assistant (and her aunt), Olga, will try to save her from life imprisonment. Her grandfather, too, the rude Sultan Nuralidov, struggles to get her free and to free also her little brother Shamil (13 years old) from the game of Wahabit resistance.

In the meantime in Paris, Louis de Monfalcon, correspondent of a French paper, discovers the story of Madina and gets involved in it. Olga fascinates him with her seductive arts. Between them a feeling is born, overwhelming, that will change the destiny of the protagonists. So the story of a whole people intertwines with the lives of a just divorced European, in middle-age crisis. He will be the one to report on a world that maybe he cannot understand but which tricks him to the point that he decides to take Olga with him to Paris. A one way travel for the fascinating Russian woman, which will eventually affect in a strange way also the destiny of the young and untameable Madina…..

pp.240