"Love and how far a person will go for their dreams" - new romance/thriller

As Francesca, aged 23, explains: “The book is set in the mountaintop village of Castelmauro, where my family live and where I spent many summer holidays visiting. All my family frequently told me tales about the town and its people, and I think these little snippets of stories were the foundations for the book. But the thing which most inspired me was every year we went out to Italy, there were always farmlands set on fire by the farmers to burn the last year’s crop. This is illegal in Italy, and I witnessed several fires grow wild and out of control, leading to huge damage and sometimes fatality.

“Another inspiration for the book was my Nonno (Italian grandfather), who works the land making wine and olive oil, which is the same profession as Domenico, the lead male in my book. The main subjects of the book are domestic abuse, religion, homophobia, love and how far a person will go for their dreams. I think this book is a great read and will appeal to anyone for it has something for everyone: crime, psychological thriller, romance, murder mystery and more.

“I loved writing this book because it tackled challenging subjects and I loved writing the many plot twists which run throughout the book and jumping between the present (written in letters) and the past, which build up the tension in the book. One of my favourite subjects within the book is this fear of repeating the same mistakes as our parents, especially in the way of love. All the main characters who are young are constantly making decisions based on what their parents did or didn’t do, which adds more complex layers to each of these relationships and is in most cases their downfall.

“The starting point of the book is a letter written from Domenico Fango to his dead mentor, Signoro Maestro describing the conditions of his prison cell and how he came to be there. He talks about how he was arrested for the murder of his lover Chiara who died in the wild flames of a valley fire. In the letter, he pleads his innocence and turns over the events leading to her death and his imprisonment.

“The book is the last in The Adriatic Trilogy. The three books do not follow on from each other and can be read as stand-alone novels, but they all share the same themes and are all located on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

“Ever since I was a child I loved reading, but I was never very good at writing in school.

"It was not until I was 15 where we were asked in our English literature class to write a book based around the theme of colour. The colour I chose was blue, and I was asked to read the paragraph out in class, and some of the girls were very surprised in a good way, as I think they always thought I was a bit ditzy. After this, I began writing stories, but I still did not think I would pursue it as a career..”