The Italian Girl

The Italian Girl is an intoxicating tale of passion and destiny, from Lucinda Riley, #1 bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series.

Nothing sings as sweetly as love, or burns quite like betrayal . . .

Rosanna Menici is just a girl when she meets Roberto Rossini – the man who will change her life forever. In the years that follow, their destinies become bound together, both by their extraordinary talents as opera singers, and by their enduring, obsessive love.

Their passion will ultimately affect the lives of all those closest to them. For, as Rosanna slowly discovers, their union is haunted by irreversible events of the past . . .

** A version of this story has previously been published under the title Aria, under the name Lucinda Edmonds – now extensively rewritten as The Italian Girl. **

Lucinda Riley was born in Ireland in 1965 and, after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first novel aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord all around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, inspiring its own genre.

Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella Prize, the Lovely Books Award in Germany and the Romantic Novel of the Year Award. She has received the Dutch Platinum Award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year multiple times – a prize last won by J. K. Rowling for Harry Potter. In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised and wrote the Guardian Angels series of books for children.

Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk, England, in 2015 she fulfilled her dream of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home, and this was where her last five books were written. Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and died on 11 June 2021, surrounded by her family.