A tangled knot of betrayal and love, lies and redemption. Marvelous. --Fiona Davis, author of The AddressA song brought them together.A secret will tear them apart.Venice, 1736. When fate brings Violetta and Mino together on the roof of the Hospital of the Incurables, they form a connection that will change their lives forever. Both are orphans at the Incurables, dreaming of escape. But when the resident Maestro notices Violetta's voice, she is selected for the Incurables' world famous coro, and must sign an oath never to sing beyond its church doors.After a declaration of love ends in heartbreak, Mino flees the Incurables in search of his family. Known as the city of masks, Venice is full of secrets, and Mino is certain one will lead to his long-lost mother. Without him, the walls close in on Violetta and she begins a dangerous and forbidden nightlife, hoping her voice can secure her freedom. But neither finds what they are looking for, until a haunting memory Violetta has suppressed since childhood leads them to a shocking confrontation.Vibrant with the glamour and beauty of Venice at its zenith, The Orphan's Song takes us on a breathtaking journey of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal before it crescendos to an unforgettable ending, a celebration of the enduring nature and transformative power of love.

    The war may be waning, but the city known as La Serenissima is still occupied and the people of Italy fear the power of the Third Reich. One night, under a canopy of stars, a fisherman named Cenzo comes across a young woman’s body floating in the lagoon and soon discovers that she is still alive and in trouble.Born to a wealthy Jewish family, Giulia is on the run from the SS. Cenzo chooses to protect Giulia rather than hand her over to the Nazis. This act of kindness leads them into the world of Partisans, random executions, the arts of forgery and high explosives, Mussolini’s broken promises, the black market and gold, and, everywhere, the enigmatic maze of the Venice Lagoon.

    She and her husband Liviu are teachers in their twenties, living under the repressive regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in the Socialist Republic of Romania in the 1970s. But after her brother-in-law defects, Alina and Liviu fall under suspicion and surveillance, and their lives are suddenly turned upside down--just like the glasses in her superstitious Aunt Theresa's house that are used to ward off evil spirits.But Alina's evil spirits are more corporeal: a suffocating, manipulative mother; a student who accuses her; and a menacing Secret Services agent who makes one-too-many visits. As the couple continues to be harassed, their marriage soon deteriorates. With the government watching--and most likely listening--escape seems impossible . . . until Alina's mystical aunt proposes a surprising solution to reduce her problems to a manageable size.Weaving elements of magic realism, Romanian folklore, and Kafkaesque paranoia into a gritty and moving depiction of one woman's struggle for personal and political freedom, Bottled Goods is written in short bursts of "flash fiction" and explores universal themes of empowerment, liberty, family, and loyalty.

    Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.—a group whose members are the children of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding—and redemption—people crave in the face of tragedy.