The pebbles and crystals are kept in glass jars, sorted into different colours. Written with a red marker pen on each jar is a date, a few words or a place name.
Giorgia is a fundraiser for an NGO that rescues women and children from a life on the streets in Asia, and this is how she records the important moments in her life – her emotional geology. The heartshaped pebble recalls her parents’ first meeting. The splinter of white rock represents her birth. There’s one for her high school diploma, one for a birthday, another for a holiday by the sea. The small stone that Alex, her first love, used to unlock her heart. And the grey pebble polished by the patient waters of the lake: home.
After being away for years, Giorgia returns to her family home on the shores of Lake Como to clear and sell it. But shadows and surprises huddle in the old rooms and objects of her childhood: Alex, who still lives just beyond the garden, is now a tired and embittered man; her mother, so distant and self-obsessed; her sister, a troubled wife and mother of a teenager who’s growing up too fast; and above all the echo of the voice that belonged to her father Petar, who died twenty years earlier. An exceptional man who escaped Tito’s Yugoslavia, a scientist who never tired of discoveries, he shaped his daughter’s life with theories, games, scientific experiments and formulas, and continues to influence her even in his absence.
On the banks of an apparently still lake, absorbing and reflecting this varied human landscape, nothing is as it should or could be. Or is it?
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You don’t stumble upon the Tired Sirens B & B by chance – four rooms on a Mediterranean island hidden behind a turquoise door, a kitchen where there is always something going on and a large terrace overlooking the sea.
It is not in any tourist guide and you can’t book it online or through a travel agency: you have to write a letter justifying your request, and then wait for a light blue envelope with the symbol of a siren on it to arrive confirming your stay. Eva, Jonas, Olivia, Lisa and Lara are well aware of this, the five new guests who arrive on the island for a detox holiday that promises to restore body and soul, and help them find the answers they are looking for.
To welcome them there are Dana, a thirty year-old who wants to improve everyone’s life with a little bit of yoga, meditation and her famous cleansing organic fruit shakes, and Tamara, a middle-aged painter who loves the sea, and the silence and solitude of her studio. Together they manage the B & B offering sessions of yogatherapy, art, cooking, talk and lots of relaxation, away from cell phones and technology. But what happens when the past pops up to unhinge the present? From what and from whom is Tamara hiding, to such an extent that she never leaves the island? And who are Eva, Jonas, Olivia, Lisa and Lara? Are they really who they claim to be or are they lying, above all to themselves?
Between sunny days and one dramatic night that keeps everyone in suspense, the guests at the B&B turn their vacation into a necessary truce in which they rediscover who they are and who they want to be, as “what happens is the only thing that could have happened” and “something always happens at the right moment.”
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A Tempest in Four Teacups
Viola lives in a small village in the South of France, in a big house that she shares with her dog Chai. She has a shop that sells teas from all over the world. Her passion is to find the right blend for the emotions of each of her customers and to invent epicurean recipes with her teas.
Teas that assuage fear, bitterness, and melancholy; teas that brings happiness, euphoria, a sense of lightness and peace. There is a brew for every mood and Viola knows them all. She mixes, tastes, and pours out her teas in just the right doses. In her tea atelier, in various flavors and mugs, she administers centiliter after centiliter of renewed hope and trength. For her birthday, Viola always meets up with three lifelong friends in La Calmette for a rendezvous of chatting, relaxing, and sunbathing admist the scent of lavender. But this year is different.
Despite the joy of seeing her friends, Viola is tormented by grief over the death of her husband in a tragic car accident: three years have passed, but her suffering continues unabated. Meanwhile Mavi, the only mother in the group, is perpetually stressed. Chantal, a yoga teacher in search of her place in the world, is having doubts about her partner, who is much younger than she. And Alberta, an architect, is distant, distracted by her professional commitments and a new love. None of the four women appears to be the same person the others knew, or thought they knew.
Each has within her an unexpected uneasiness, mounting by the hour like a storm and which finally erupts in front of Viola’s birthday cake and her unsuspecting assistant Azalée. Between illusions and disappointments, regrets and revenge, tears and laughter, the four women will be confronted with their childhood dreams and the missed opportunities of adulthood. But they will also pass through this storm to emerge stronger and transformed.
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Do you love experimenting in the kitchen? Is tea your favourite beverage? Find out how to use tea when cooking thanks to this appetizing original recipe book! Prawns, risotto, tasty tramezzino sandwich, unique savory muffin… there are many ways to bring tea on the table!
Why tea? Federica Brunini introduces this recipe book, inspired to her new romance A tempest in four teacups, edited by Feltrinelli: “In my family, I was always tagged as the one who could only put the kettle on, since I had no inclination nor interest in cooking, until I discovered that tea could be turned into food. It was not just a beverage”.
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Sparkling, ironic, irresistible: discover the Marilyn in you!
Little black dress and ballet flats: this is the Camilla Casteldiani’s “uniform”, a 30 years old a bit frustrated journalist of gossip. Her idol is Audrey Hepburn, a symbol of elegance. Camilla is writing her biography. But when she receives the portrait for the cover of the book of Marylin instead of Audrey, Camilla experiences a sudden unexpected change in style. Especially when the blondest blonde of the planet begins to speak, to sip champagne and to give not requested advice. At the beginning, Camilla gets annoyed, but then, when she cries for the end of her relationship with Crist, she can’t do nothing but to accept the advice of the celebrity. Marylin’s shock therapy has the effect of a real hurricane: Camilla needs a change of wardrobe and a change of look: from her hair colour to her makeup. She needs to learn handbook for how to be sexy and get a man. Thanks to an enigmatic Mr. G. that appears and disappears in her inbox and thanks to a mysterious knight that saves her from an embarrassing situation, Camilla must learn to pull out the blonde in her.
Astonishing, smart, sentimental, “The blonde formula” is a not to be missed comedy.
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Merry shocking pink Christmas
Fresh, ironic and touching: five stories of women to read under the Christmas tree.
Christmas is a magic day and sometimes it can bring us awaited surprises like in many fairy tales. This is what happens to Alessia who, after a bad thrashing in love, decides to take refuge in a mountain lodge to be able to cry in peace. Until a tender little dog livens up her exile.
Valeria lives an incredible experience. While she is going through her mother underwear drawer to find a guêpière for her mother, she bumps into a fascinating Santa Claus in the flesh. Veronika, a hardened street photojournalist, will also meet someone special that she would never forget. Attention please, how many times Christmas holidays become a real nightmare? A nice mother rents her childhood house to spend the holidays with her relatives and friends. Her intentions are good and the organization of food, illumination, presents is perfect.
Well, nearly… because things don’t always go exactly as we have imagined them. The impertinent mademoiselle Nadine knows this well: on Christmas Day, during the sumptuous lunch with her aunt Baroness, she witnesses the murder of little Minou, the beloved cat of the house, and the disappearance of some precious emeralds …
I will be Queen
The love story of the century in the chronicles of a journalist. Everything’s true: articles, witnesses, researches. Just one thing is fiction: Kate’s voice.
Intriguing like a secret. Fun like gossip.
“Will you marry me?”
Everything you want to know and I haven’t said yet: when I first met the Prince, our first kiss, our first time. Our intimate moments and the day when Lady D saved my life…
The 19th April 2011 is an historic moment for the British Crown and the international gossip column: Lady Catherine is burn, first middle-class Princess in the whole history of the United Kindgom and fiancé of the future king William V. It’s been seven years from her first public apparition next to Charles and Lady D. son, but Kate awaits a lifetimes for this. Since the 29th July 1981 when her mother remained glued to the TV for the most followed TV wedding in the history of television: the wedding between Charles and Diana Spencer.
In Carol’s baby bumb, Kate’s heart beats faster. Biography, gossip, witnesses and a bit of imagination. I will be Queen tells about the story of Kate Middleton, from her childhood until the university when she first met the Prince. The meeting, living together, joy and pain of a royal love. In the end, the ring. The dream comes true. Because all women, once in their lifetime, have dreamed of marrying the prince charming.
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How to choose the right travel at the right moment
Leaving for the other side of the world is a way to start a new life. To enjoy a holiday. To take a breath. To make an old wish come true. To find the ideal love and to forget the real one. To start again and to find yourself (a part at least). There are places that can change your mood, your life. Travel is good. You must know where to go. Which is the best destination to fix a broken heart? And when we fall in love? A destination to climb out of the rut, to celebrate the resignation, a new beginning, a promotion? This is the perfect guide to orient yourself in the world and find the right “therapy”: diagnosis, remedy and a tour to follow. Different itineraries: Italy, Europe, other Countries. Some practical advice from a real traveller. With this book, Federica Brunini, travel therapist, classifies travels according to the mood and the psychological well-being that can offer.
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The little green book of the travel
250 “green” advice
Eco friendly tourism? Difficult, but not impossible: The little green book of the travel will teach you to be informed travellers. From the choice of means of transport and hotels to the food, from the souvenir to the clothes, from the pictures to the luggage. 250 simple and practical advice to travel totally green. Do you know that if you travel by night, the greenhouse effect gets worse? Do you know that the usage of the toilettes on airplanes is as pollutant as 10 km by car? Curiosity, advice and eco-oriented strategies to leave with the right ‘green’ awareness and to live a journey, respectfully to the environment.
The traveller handbook
How to leave for holidays with the right luggage? How to succeed in moving between forests and metropolis so casually (do not forget your high heels)? How to choose the right travel mate, destination, hotel, seat on the plane? A handbook for women that want to face the adventure of the travel, also when thy’re alone: advice, cautions and strategies to travel clear. From the A of airport to the Z of Zone off limits to leave with your friends, your boyfriend, your family, kids and pets. Especially with yourself. How? By plane, train, bus, car, bike or on foot (with difficulty). Facing cities, deserts, savannahs. Or just a shopping tour away from home. A number of advice to prepare the perfect luggage and beauty bag, to choose the perfect destination and how to reach it (without sure scams). Pleasant tests reveal how to choose the right people, with whom you can share the travel, before it’s too late.
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