valeriavescina Behind the scenes of 'That Summer in Puglia', Blog

WWN interview about “That Summer in Puglia”

Last Thursday I had the privilege of being interviewed by Helen Murray Taylor of the Women Writers Network about That Summer in Puglia. Helen writes both fiction and nonfiction. She’s the author of the immersive The Backstreets of Purgatory (Unbound, 2018) and the powerful Love Lay Down Beside Me and We Wept (Wilton Square, 2026). The Women Writers Network is an international community active on Bluesky (formerly on Twitter). Founded in 2017, it supports and promotes women’s writing. Its activities include a monthly author interview.

If you have a Bluesky account, you can access our conversation via the links below. If you’ve not discovered Bluesky yet, you’ll find a transcript of the interview further down this page. A few of the attendees also posed questions, which I’ve incorporated in the transcript.

Q1 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msgjibnrku2m

Q2 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msgjustq7l2b

Q3 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msgkgpif7w2k

Q4 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msgkyp623f2o

Q5 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msglkh5ect2e

Q6 https://bsky.app/profile/womenwritersnet.bsky.social/post/3msgm4de4m22m

Transcript of the interview of 6 August 2026

Helen: Welcome, Valeria. To get things started, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your writing career to date?

Sure! I write novels, teach creative writing, and review books. I’m also proud to be a co-founder of the Women Writers Network! My first novel, “That Summer in Puglia”, debuted in 2018 at the Oxford Lit Fest. A second edition of it has just been released by Breakthrough Books, who will also publish my second book, a historical novel, this coming winter.

I graduated from the Goldsmiths Creative & Life Writing MA and since 2013 I’ve taught creative writing to people of all ages – from secondary-school pupils to university BA and MA classes. I run 2-3 writing retreats a year in Switzerland’s magical Bernese Oberland.

Breakthrough Books: Has teaching creative writing helped your own craft?

Undoubtedly! I learn something new every time.

Helen: I’ve seen pictures from your writing retreats. What an amazing setting. Can you provide the link?

Sure! Thank you for asking. Here is a link to my writing retreats in the Swiss Alps: https://valeriavescina.com/teaching/writing-retreats/

I’ve also reviewed fiction in translation for the European Literature Network’s The Riveter, opera and lieder for Seen And Heard International, and arts & culture events for the School of Advanced Study’s Talking Humanities. I occasionally review books on my blog.

Helen: Do all these other activities feed into your own writing practice?

For sure! Teaching means that I keep learning, but also that I must keep both my intuitive and my critical faculties working in tandem, in a balance. Writing reviews is similarly enlightening: I owe it to the author to always read as a writer!

Stephanie Bretherton: What made you want to go with Breakthrough Books?

In a risk-averse publishing landscape, Breakthrough Books champions exciting, original, high-quality books. So, it’s a joy to be published by it!

Helen: Without giving too much away, can you tell us a little about That Summer in Puglia? 

That Summer in Puglia is set in 1980s Puglia (chiefly in Ostuni) and present-day London. Tommaso has escaped discovery for thirty years – but a young private investigator, Will, has tracked him down in London. Tommaso asks him to pretend never to have found him. To persuade Will, Tommaso recounts the story of his life and his great love, Anna. In the process, he comes to recognise his true role in the events that unfolded long ago in Puglia, and the legacy of unresolved grief. Now Tommaso is being presented with a second chance – but is he ready to pay the price?

Rita E. Gould: Such a fascinating premise of what happened between the opening in present-day London and Puglia 30 years ago. What made you decide to use a frame tale?

It felt completely coherent with the story itself. It’s a long-overdue excavation by a man of his own past.

Rita E. Gould: I loved how it worked! He needed that outside impetus to stop retreating and to re-examine everything.

Helen: Yes, exactly that. Without it he would have hidden from his own story for the rest of his life.

Yes, exactly. I’m happy that you felt it worked. I wanted Tommaso to resist the push by the young PI to excavate his own past, and, at the same time, to slowly feel – as he narrates his life story – a sense of relief as he finally faces up to it.

Helen: The novel is infused with the sights, sounds, tastes and atmosphere of Puglia, which is delightful. Why did you decide to set the novel there?

I felt that my native Puglia offered an ideal setting: its layers of history are integral to Tommaso’s story. His memories of its sensuous colours, aromas and tastes, and of how it felt to love and be loved, and to grieve, eventually overwhelm him and help him open up to Will.

I love my native region and am glad to hear from readers that they feel transported to it. I’m proud that one of the endorsements said, “Here is the discovery through literature of Puglia”. 

Helen: That is so true. I felt like I was discovering a region that I didn’t know. Does it sound strange to say that to me its (Puglia’s) presence was almost like another character in the novel?

Not strange at all! On the contrary, I’m glad you felt that. Also to me, Puglia in this book truly is a character in its own right, in that it shapes and tests the protagonists. People who’re not very familiar with Southern Italy often don’t realise just how diverse it is, both between and within regions. Puglia is particularly rich in culture, for historical reasons.

Stephanie Bretherton: I loved the evocative richness of the story. It really made me want to visit the area, and it made me hungry all time! Do you think the Italian part of yourself made the ability to bring all the senses alive in the book a little more natural?

Thank you for that lovely comment (and question!). Yes, it’s my native region, so I know it very, very well. That helps to bring the sensorial details to life – and they’re very important in a story of a man recollecting his long-lost past.

Stephanie Bretherton: Yes, the senses compel us into feeling fully present while also immediately summoning the past!

It’s true of all of us, so yes, it was particularly important for Tommaso’s story.

Helen:  What are the main themes in That Summer in Puglia?

The novel has several interconnected themes. I did not set out to write to a theme (or two!), though, but discovered them while writing. That Summer is about all forms of love, and about compassion for others and oneself, as I think compassion is a thread running through them.

Helen: I think compassion is such an important theme, especially for our past selves. We can learn from Tommaso ‘s story. Better to face up to our mistakes because without that, we can’t be compassionate and forgiving to ourselves.

Exactly. Without compassion for ourselves and others, it’s so much harder to admit when we’re wrong and to learn from errors!

Rita E. Gould: I love that the compassion applies to everyone, including the PI! Tommaso listens to him and helps the investigator re-examine his pain.

Thank you for pointing that out. Indeed, I did mean it to hint at the fact that Tommaso was opening himself up to compassion, in the process!

That Summer is also about the necessity for dialogue, and the dangers of cutting oneself off from it. And it’s about the process that E.M. Forster called “connecting the fragments”: living with and bridging the contradictions in ourselves and others. 

Rita E. Gould: I think communication is so key in this novel, both in the past and in the present.

Helen: You bring this out beautifully in the book. I was so frustrated with Tommaso at certain points because so much could have been avoided by proper communication.

Yes, that was central to the story.

Rita E. Gould: I also think it was quite true to the age of the protagonists — young enough to be impulsive and to believe the worst recklessly.

Ah, yes. Their age is totally bound up with their responses.

Helen: The story is presented as a dramatic monologue by Tommaso to a private investigator. Why did you decide to frame it in this way? 

Tommaso narrates his story with the intensity that the resurfacing memories provoke in him. His narration is “framed” by moments with the young PI who has tracked him down. You don’t hear what the young man says but you infer it from Tommaso’s answers. That’s dramatic monologue. Browning used dramatic monologue for “My Last Duchess”, Camus for “The Fall”, Hamid for “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”.  It’s not a form you see often, but it struck me as so appropriate for Tommaso’s story! I’ll explain why!

So, why dramatic monologue for “That Summer”? First, it breaks the intensity of Tommaso’s narration. Second, it conveys his isolation. Third, it’s a dialogue of which we hear only one side, and Tommaso caused a tragedy by refusing dialogue.

Rita E. Gould: It makes so much sense! Tommaso is the only who has to speak since he broke down the lines of communication.

The final reason for choosing dramatic monologue for That Summer is that the reader is placed in the position of identifying with the PI and so wavers between sympathy and judgment for Tommaso. That’s appropriate, as he’s an unwittingly unreliable narrator.

Helen: It is the perfect device for mirroring what is happening in the story. Did you decide to do it straight off or did it come as part of a rewrite or edit?

I decided to do it straight off. One of my MA tutors suggested I try also a different form, and I did, for experimentation. But the contrast between the two only proved that the intuition about dramatic monologue being ideal for this story had been correct!

Helen: Tommaso narrates the story in a second language that has become his first. He talks of being “caught out” by idioms. Italian words peppered throughout the novel add to the atmosphere. Could you tell us about this?

For Tommaso’s language, I drew partly on experience. I learned English as a child and have lived in English-speaking environments most of my life, so I’m fully bilingual. Tommaso, on the other hand, starts learning English only aged 19. I’ve therefore given him a recognizably Italian accent and have him being “caught out” by idiomatic expressions, as he has learnt much of his English from books. I also peppered Tommaso’s narration with Italian words. This can only be done sparingly, to avoid breaking the flow for the reader. So, Italian words appear either in particularly emotional moments, or to describe something especially Apulian. 

Helen: You do this perfectly. Also, there is something singular and beautiful about your writing and I wonder whether you think it is influenced at all by being able to speak several languages?

Thanks for that lovely comment! I suppose being a linguist (I speak 4 languages) involves both a love of language and a heightened awareness of its structural and lexical possibilities. Maybe it’s bound to flow into a mixture of intuitive and conscious narrative choices.

Helen: What a wonderful gift for a writer to have the richness of four languages to work with. Very envious and impressed, Valeria.

The cover for That Summer in Puglia is beautiful. Can you tell us how it came about? 

The cover photo was taken by photographer Salvo d’Avila as part of a shoot to capture the novel’s spirit. It shows a young couple in the old town of Ostuni, the novel’s main setting. It’s in black & white, and you see their backs. It conveys a sense of memory and nostalgia.

Breakthrough Books’ Jamie Chipperfield then designed the cover, and I love it. He heightened that sense of memory and nostalgia with a fading effect along the photo’s edges. And the blue-green of the title’s font evokes both the sea and the couple’s youth. I also like how dynamic Jamie Chipperfield made the back cover, with the blurb in black and the endorsements in the same blue-green of the title on the front.

Breakthrough Books: Jamie did such a good job! He really captured the spirit of young love, nostalgia, and a sense of the ‘unknown’ – it also has a timeless feel.

I agree! Not just a beautiful cover, but it captures so many aspects of the story!

Conveying the sense of nostalgia was important: it’s the nostalgia that Tommaso’s narration is infused with but that he refuses to acknowledge because it would mean recognising reality and therefore his responsibility in the events of years earlier. His nostalgia manifests by his selective recall of the beauty of Puglia: sights, sounds, aromas, tastes… They are all true, but he disregards the rest of a more complex reality. His refusal to acknowledge his nostalgia shows also in the way he depicts other protagonists. Almost until the end, Tommaso fails to acknowledge the humanity of people he casts in the role of villains, as he subconsciously fears opening a crack in his self-narrative. The PI forces him to excavate his past and to face up to his own role in the events of 30 years earlier.

Helen: The cover beautifully evokes this sense of nostalgia.

My thanks to designer Jamie Chipperfield and editor-in-chief Stephanie Bretherton at the wonderful Breakthrough Books for that!

Breakthrough Books: It was a joy to work on!

Helen: Where can we find out more about you and your books?

You can find me on my website (https://valeriavescina.com/) and on social media: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. My second novel, Habit of Disobedience, will be forthcoming from Breakthrough Books this winter, and it too will be available from all good bookshops. 

Breakthrough Books is an innovative independent press that emerged out of a collective of established authors. As I said earlier, in a risk-averse publishing landscape, it champions exciting, original, high-quality books. Being published by them is a joy. Here is a link to the Breakthrough Books website: https://www.breakthroughbookcollective.com/

And finally, a little information about the forthcoming Habit of Disobedience: https://valeriavescina.com/writing/habit-of-disobedience/

Helen: Very exciting! Can’t wait to read it. We will have to have you back for another author interview when this one comes out. I am already anticipating lots of possible questions and I haven’t even read it yet!!

Rita E. Gould: I love a disobedient nun! I can’t wait to read this book.

Thank you, Rita! I’ve grown to love the “disobedient” 16th-century nuns who inspired the novel.

Helen: We are really looking forward to the release of Valeria’s second novel, Habit of Disobedience.

Thank you, Valeria, for chatting with us, and thank you to all who took part in tonight’s Author Interview. To find out about future events, make sure to follow us on Bluesky and the hashtag #WomenWritersNet.

Thank YOU, Helen Murray Taylor and the whole WomenWritersNet team, for this opportunity to chat with you at length about That Summer in Puglia! And thank you, of course, to all attendees and readers of our conversation!

Rita E. Gould: I’m so glad I came to tonight’s WomenWritersNet Author Interview! I think I love that That Summer in Puglia even more after learning about all of the thought that Valeria Vescina put into this moving novel.

That Summer in Puglia is available from your local bookshop or through Waterstones, Blackwell’s, Barnes & Noble and Amazon worldwide, in paperback and ebook.

Image credits:

Photos by the author

Cover by Jamie Chipperfield, incorporating photos by Salvo D’Avila

valeriavescina Behind the scenes of 'That Summer in Puglia', Blog

That Summer in Puglia – a conversation in Lucerne

The recent event at the Terranova bookshop in Lucerne was among those I’ve enjoyed the most, out of all my readings from That Summer in Puglia. I had presented my novel widely when it first came out in 2018, and the event this June was to launch the second edition (Breakthrough Books). Having moved six years ago from London to the Lucerne area, I was especially pleased to be sharing my work with people in my new ‘home’. I’ve been reflecting on what else made the evening so special for me, and I think it’s down to a combination of factors.

The enthusiasm of Terranova’s Ottilia Lütolf and Markus Elsener meant that I felt warmly welcomed from the outset. They stock titles in several languages and in translation (another element that connected us, as I collaborated for years with the European Literature Network), and regularly organise fabulous literary evenings. This would be their first in English. They made the event’s promotion effortless for me, as they could rely on their experience and established channels. I added to it by reaching out to Lucerne’s international community.

My interviewer, Literature and Philosophy lecturer Monica Tiffany, had read the novel with exceptional attention and sensitivity, so her questions and comments were incredibly thoughtful, as well as heartfelt. It made the conversation between us flow so naturally! We touched on the story, its themes, the characters’ arcs (while avoiding spoilers…), the centrality of the Apulian setting, the veiled references to philosophy, and narrative choices such as the use of the dramatic monologue form.

The public was wonderfully responsive. They asked lots of questions during the Q&A session, as well as afterwards when I was signing copies of the book. It was lovely to see friends in the audience, and lots of interesting people I had never met until that evening.

The event space also fostered this warm atmosphere. The conversation between Monica Tiffany and me had originally been meant to take place at the Terranova bookshop, an attractive and cozy place. Demand for seats, however, turned out to be higher than we had imagined. A substantial waiting list and the possibility that additional people might arrive on the night without having contacted the bookshop prompted a search for a larger venue. Markus was able to secure the Himmelrich events hall, just a few doors down, and so we were thankfully able to accommodate just over fifty people.

The drinks and snacks with which, after the talk, we celebrated the launch of That Summer in Puglia’s second edition created a veritable party feeling. People stayed at the hall until late into the evening. It was so enjoyable to meet everyone. What can I say? It really was a warm welcome for my novel… and for me in the country where I now live. 

Maria, Ottilia, and Markus of Terranova, with Monica and me in the centre

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Reviews of the novels by Rachel Seiffert and Alice Jolly shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026

‘How dare we predict the behaviour of man?’ wrote Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. His quote is at the front of Alice Jolly’s The Matchbox Girl (Bloomsbury, November 2025), but the theme at which it hints is shared also by Rachel Seiffert’s Once The Deed Is Done (Virago, March 2025). Both books are on the 2026 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction shortlist, and I wholeheartedly recommend them. These beautifully written and painstakingly researched novels will steep you in life under Nazism and make you ask yourself an uncomfortable question: how might you have behaved under those circumstances? Of course, each of the two books handles several other themes.    

I begin with Rachel Seiffert’s Once The Deed Is Done, which I originally reviewed more briefly under ‘My top historical fiction reads’ in May 2025.  

Once The Deed Is Done sheds light on a page of history rarely covered in fiction, immersing us so deeply in the events and in the protagonists’ inner and outer worlds that it feels as if we were there.

Lüneburg Heath, Northern Germany, 1945. It’s March, and the Reich’s defeat is imminent. We follow the thoughts and actions of the residents of a small town through multiple narrators’ points of view: young and old, those who were faithful to the Nazis, those who put up quiet resistance to them… Something mysterious and sinister happens one night on the town’s outskirts, near the munition works manned by Eastern European forced labourers. Fragments of that night’s events transpire slowly, as some of the townsfolk were there, or watched from a distance, or heard rumours.

We eventually discover what happened, through the eyes of a British Army sergeant, of a young fugitive carrying a baby in her arms, and of Ruth, a British Jewish Red Cross officer. Ruth and the sergeant oversee a camp for displaced people, set up by Allied forces at the war’s end on the town’s outskirts. There, we track the fortunes and inner lives of a large cast of characters: men, women, and two children who are among the hundreds of thousands forcibly transported by the Nazis to work in German factories and farms. Among them are mothers separated from their children, and vice-versa. Ruth works relentlessly to find the whereabouts of their loved ones, a Sisyphean task in the immediate post-war chaos. She faces tough choices every day: whether to ignore evidence of black-market activity in the camp or not; to move the two children to Hamburg, where they would be better catered for, but where their chance of finding again those they love would be lower, unless… Nor is repatriation the wish of every displaced person: those from Poland and Ukraine fear returning to lands now under Stalin’s control.

Few novelists can weave such a compelling narration through so many characters’ perspectives. Authors capable of it reward us with an uncommonly rich reading experience. We hear both the choral effect and the individual voices. Seiffert does not shy away from the enormity of the horror at the centre of this novel, but she also paints the minutiae of every character with the finest brush. The protagonists are three-dimensional people. The town where the shocking events have taken place is both itself and a microcosm of Germany: who supported, who acquiesced in, who resisted Nazism? One of the characters, the yard man Herr Brandt, realises the only reason he’s not on the Allies’ list of Nazi sympathisers is that he was not awarded a manufacturing contract he desperately sought. He contrasts his own cowardice with schoolmaster Arno’s brave dissent, and yet Arno feels a coward for not having done more.

Through her unsentimental and yet moving prose, Seiffert lays out the facts, and poses questions that linger in the mind about the past and the present. That is what the best historical fiction does. Seiffert’s novels have received well deserved recognition: one was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, another three were longlisted for the Women’s Prize… How wonderful to see Once The Deed Is Done on the shortlist of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2026.

Meet narrator Adelheid Brunner, a fictional Viennese neurodivergent 12-year-old when the book opens in 1934. She is the eponymous “matchbox girl” by virtue of her obsession for collecting and organising matchboxes. Adelheid refuses to speak, seeking safety in her silence, as she finds it difficult to understand what’s appropriate to say. ‘Staying silent’ is a recurring motif in the novel: some silences protect people, while others prove fatal. Adelheid’s complexity and her compulsion to understand things, to categorise them (into binaries which they resist), and to write them all down make her an engrossing narrator.

Much of the action takes place in the Curative Education Ward of the Vienna Children’s Clinic, where Adelheid is sent as a young patient and where she later works. From the very start, events in the outside world shape the lives of everyone in the ward: patients, doctors, nurses… From the murder of Chancellor Dolfuss, all the way to post-WW2 reconstruction, we follow history in the making through Adelheid’s unflinching gaze. Many of the events and behaviours she witnesses confound her because, with the advent of Nazism, reality acquires an upside-down quality. In a memorable paragraph, Dr Josef Feldner, one of the doctors on the ward, warns Adelheid that they’re now in a world in which she must do “the Wrong Thing in order to do the Right Thing” and that others must pretend not to see her doing it.

Feldner is one of many real-life characters in the novel. He bravely rescues a Jewish boy by passing him off as his nephew – an open secret which his colleagues keep. As readers, we’re plunged into the darkness and moral ambiguities the hospital staff navigate. Dr Hans Asperger, who sees the individuality and potential of every child in his pioneering research and work on autism, is the same man who signs off on the transfer of dozens of children to the notorious Am Spiegelgrund, where many are murdered. The insightful Dr Anni Weiss and Dr Georg Frankl leave Vienna and emigrate to the US because they are Jewish. Sr Viktorine Zak (whom Asperger called ‘a genius’) shines for her profound love and warm care of the children – she must have chosen to stay and look after them, knowing and not knowing about the encroachment of eugenicist ideology on the Children’s Clinic under Dr Franz Hamburger.

We’d all like to think we’d be as brave as Dr Feldner under the same atrocious circumstances – but would we be? The novel instills a sense of humility: the acknowledgment that most of us are fortunate (so far) not to be put to such tests. Where would we personally draw the line between compliance and resistance? Another of the novel’s epitaphs comes to mind, this time from psychiatrist and autism researcher Lorna Wing: ‘Nature never draws a line without smudging it’. How clearly can we draw one between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ behaviour? And between survival and collaboration?

The novel is superbly written and engaging. Adelheid has a strong voice and a complex perspective. The narration moves at a fast pace, taking in the stories of all the central characters. Alice Jolly is to be applauded also for highlighting the contributions of many people to our understanding of neurodiversity: the focus isn’t solely on the controversial Dr Asperger, but also on the forgotten Drs Feldner, Weiss, and Frankl, and Sister Viktorine Zak, whose character is particularly moving. How good for her to be given visibility: being a woman and a nurse, she features little in histories of autism, despite Asperger’s high esteem of her. Recognition of her work seems apt also because yet another ‘gender gap’ – in the diagnosis of autistic girls and women – has finally been addressed in very recent years.

valeriavescina Behind the scenes of 'That Summer in Puglia', Blog

A second edition of ‘That Summer in Puglia’

This weekend marks one month from Breakthrough Books’ release of That Summer in Puglia‘s second edition, in paperback and on Kindle. The first edition was launched in 2018 at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival and had three print runs. I hope the book will continue finding its way into readers’ hands far and wide.

I’m grateful to Stephanie Bretherton, Breakthrough Books‘ editor, who is a joy to work with, and to Jamie Chipperfield for his gorgeous cover design, which captures the nostalgia of the narrating protagonist, Tommaso. Breakthrough Books will also be publishing my second book Habit of Disobedience, later this year – it’s a historical novel inspired by events that took place in Puglia in the 1500s.

Breakthrough Books held a ‘countdown’ for the release, on several social media. Here, a few images.

Other posts, including two short extracts from the novel, have followed over the last thirty days.

On publication day, I was… in my native Brindisi! That’s where a key section of the novel is set, while most of the story takes place in Ostuni, just 35 km up the Adriatic coast. Behind me in this photo you see Brindisi harbour: it isn’t just beautiful; it has also ‘seen’ major historic events over the last couple of thousand years (that would take a whole other blog post!). In this photo I’m the happy holder of a proof of the book! 😉

If you happen to be in or near Lucerne in Switzerland (where I now live), come to the event organised for 12 June by Terranova Bücherparadies, a super-lovely bookshop that stocks titles in several languages. My interviewer will be Dr Monica Tiffany, lecturer in Literature and Philosophy.

And if you’d like to get hold of the novel, you’ll find it wherever you usually buy your books! Here, just a few places:

  • Amazon (worldwide, from its country-specific sites)
  • Waterstones (UK)
  • Blackwell’s (UK)
  • Barnes & Noble (US)
  • At the best independent bookshops in Puglia:
    • in Ostuni, where most of That Summer in Puglia unfolds, visit the wonderful Bottega del Libro, a treasure trove for book lovers
    • if you’re in nearby Monopoli, the Libreria Minopolis is the go-to place
    • in Brindisi, where key scenes in the story take place, step inside the welcoming Libreria Indipendenza, a stone’s throw from the train station
    • in Lecce, discover the historic Libreria Palmieri, which proudly remains in family ownership after nearly 60 years.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this short write-up about the newly released edition and that you’ll enjoy the novel even more, if you haven’t read it yet!

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Lily Dunn’s “Into Being”

I’ve read many titles on the craft of memoir, but Into Being is about so much more than the craft. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Lily Dunn’s focus on the transformative power of the process, her handling of philosophical questions, the generosity with which she shares her experience, the inclusion of other writers’ insights, and the voice – which blends authority and wisdom with modesty and empathy – make for a powerful mixture that I’m sure will be invaluable to memoirists for a long time to come.

I love how Lily conveys ‘the dance between writing and gaining in self-understanding in life, and how intimately connected they are.’ Her view of memoir-writing has a remarkable life-enhancing quality. ‘We are touching on questions not only of how to write better, but also how to live better, to be more self-aware and honest as we move through the world. The best memoirs, I believe, evolve alongside their authors who gain in understanding and wisdom […].’

In January, I had the privilege of interviewing Lily on behalf of the Women Writers’ Network. We discussed how she balances her work as a memoirist, teacher, and mentor; her aims for the book; how to nurture the ‘gift of noticing’; approaches to concerns over protecting oneself and others; degrees of emotional distance; finding clarity of both vision and voice; unearthing the best shape for one’s memoir.

You can read the interview of 22.1.2026 by clicking on the six questions below. Happy reading!

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Lily Dunn’s Into Being (Oct. 2025) is published by Manchester University Press.  

Image credits:

Photos by the author. Slide by Women Writers’ Network.

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Review of ‘Love Forms’ by Claire Adam

Longlisted for The Booker Prize

Love Forms by Claire Adam

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

‘It was my father who made the arrangements. My uncle helped, since he lived down south, where all this kind of business is carried out.’

The opening of ‘Love Forms’ sets the tone for the whole novel: a voice that immediately draws you in with its fresh, direct, familiar cadence; and ‘the arrangements’ at the heart of the story. These arrangements see the then sixteen-year-old protagonist, Dawn, whisked off from her home in Trinidad to Venezuela, where she must give birth in secret and surrender her baby for adoption. The reason? ‘She made a mistake and brought shame to her family.’

It’s not long before Dawn realises that the real mistake – whether really hers or her parents’ – was to give up her daughter. The intense longing to find her again impacts the rest of Dawn’s life. Though she goes on to graduate in medicine in the UK, work, marry, and raise two beloved sons, her yearning for the lost child becomes an ever-present, aching part of who she is. When she’s fifty-eight, we witness one of her many attempts to track down her daughter – a search that plays out as a roller coaster of emotions.

Dawn feels so real, that I was absorbed by her evolving feelings and her growing understanding of herself, of her family, and of the changing world around her. This is partly thanks to Claire Adam’s sensitive psychological portrayal of her main character, and partly because of the three-dimensionality she lends to the places – Trinidad, Tobago, Venezuela and London – and times the protagonists inhabit. The dialogue across generations – between Dawn and her parents, siblings, and children – is deeply affecting, as powerful in its silences as in its words. These exchanges and the characters’ actions sustain a taut narrative tension: I often found myself wondering about the consequences of certain conversations – and discovered their outcomes in the novel’s final chapters.

It’s all there in the title: ‘Love Forms’ is about different kinds of love (starting with that of a mother for her child), and about the ways it’s kindled, grows, is challenged, changes… and how it changes us in turn. It’s a poignant, beautifully written novel, and one of the finest I’ve read in a long time. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.


valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Stephanie Bretherton’s “The Fire in Their Eyes”

Re-blogged from Goodreads

The Fire in Their Eyes by Stephanie Bretherton (Breakthrough Books, 2025)

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“The Fire In Their Eyes” is a breath of fresh air: a thriller that keeps you hooked right up to the end, it’s boldly original, unafraid to experiment with form, and courageous in its engagement with urgent issues. It reveals the interconnections between these issues, while weaving a narrative that is both emotionally gripping and intellectually engaging. If you crave fiction that does more than entertain – stories that challenge you to think and that spark meaningful conversation – this book is for you.
Structured across dual timelines, the novel follows three female protagonists, all of them gripped by a strong sense of impending danger. Each woman fights, with grit and intelligence, to prevent a catastrophe. Though separated by time and geography, the threats they face are connected.
In the Arctic, geneticist Eloise races against time at a scientific research station to neutralise a fresh danger to humanity. What is its link to the DNA of “Sarah,” a woman whose 74,000-year-old remains were discovered on Mt. Kenya?
Meanwhile in Manchester, psychiatric nurse Jessica – whose husband Max unearthed Sarah’s remains – is experiencing a heightened sense of threat. What is the cause of this change in her? And how will it affect her deep, tender bond with Max?
In a lush Kenyan valley 74,000 years ago, the shamanic Old Woman – Sarah’s daughter – perceives an impending danger that could annihilate her people. It falls to her to discern the precise nature of the threat and devise a way to combat it.
Stephanie Bretherton’s novel is underpinned by meticulous research. Complex scientific ideas – particularly in biology, genetics, and virology – are conveyed with clarity and precision and linked back to some of the most profound questions of our time. For example, the author draws links between globalisation, climate change and other environmental issues, rising population density, and the emergence of new pathogens. She also explores the spiritual and philosophical questions raised by natural disasters, political opportunism, and the consequences of human actions. One question resonates especially strongly: from one generation to the next, how do we pass on the best of what it means to be human? The power of all forms of love to help us meet the toughest challenges is one of the novel’s connecting threads.
This is not, however, a didactic book. Each of its three narrative strands is as gripping as a thriller, with high stakes and expertly controlled pacing. The tension builds steadily towards an emotionally resonant climax. I found Jess and Max’s story particularly moving – an honest, tender portrayal of love and the difficulties it must overcome.
The novel’s intricate structure is beautifully handled. You always know exactly where you are and feel secure in the hands of a confident storyteller. Each of the three protagonists is surrounded by sharply drawn secondary characters: family, friends, and colleagues who feel fully alive. The integration of emails, text messages, and unsent letters lends further realism and emotional depth. The settings are equally immersive: Eloise’s sterile research facility and the bleak beauty of the Arctic; Jess at the psychiatric hospital where she works, in the swimming pool where she finds release, and in the quiet refuge of memory – drifting back to a long-ago dive among minnows; and the Old Woman’s tribal village – rich with ritual and community – and its wild surroundings.
This is a novel of gripping storytelling, literary substance, and lasting insight – one I wholeheartedly recommend. “The Fire In Their Eyes” is the second book in “The Children of Sarah” series, and I already look forward to its sequel.

valeriavescina Behind 'Habit of Disobedience', Blog, Reviews

Historical fiction – my top reads of the last 12 months

Berthe Morisot, La Lecture (Reading), 1888 (Public domain image. Source: Wikiart)

I’ve always loved historical fiction, so putting together a full list of titles I’d recommend would make for a very long post. The first novels to captivate me were Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard at secondary school. Soon after, I discovered Dacia Maraini’s The Silent Duchess. To these, over the years, I added books by Umberto Eco, Carol Shields, A.S. Byatt, Hilary Mantel, Rose Tremain, Tracy Chevalier, and many others.

What must historical fiction do, for it to stand out for me? First, it must be beautifully written. I’m very open to experimentation with form – perhaps a result of my own background as a novelist and creative writing tutor. I prize books strong in characterisation, sense of place, story structure and plot development, and other elements of the craft. Second, I’m thrilled when a novel teaches me something surprising. It could be an event central to the whole book, or a small, striking detail. I’m especially drawn to forgotten or silenced perspectives. Third, I value insights and themes that shed light on the past and the present: do they challenge harmful narratives or illuminate legacies we’re still contending with? And fourth, the story must be painstakingly researched and imagined, to possess the authenticity on which everything else rests. That includes a serious attempt at immersing me in the worldviews of the time and place depicted.

If any of this resonates with you, here are seven books I read in the past twelve months that I hope you’ll enjoy. They’re listed in alphabetical order.

Astraea – Kate Kruimink (2024, Weatherglass Books)

This powerful little volume (115 pages) won the 2024 Weatherglass Novella Prize. Set on a ship in the nineteenth century, it’s about a cargo of female convicts destined for Australia. We experience events from the point of view of fifteen-year-old Maryanne. It’s a haunting yet hopeful tale of resilience and camaraderie in the face of misery and brutality. The narration is viscerally immersive, anchored in Maryanne’s raw physical and mental perceptions. Look out for Kate Kruimink, who has already published two other novels.

Costanza – Rachel Blackmore (2024, Renegade/Dialogue Books)

Costanza Piccolomini, the woman at the centre of this novel, was the muse, lover and model of Gianlorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of seventeenth-century papal Rome. In a horrific act of violence, Bernini ordered a servant to disfigure her, in the belief she had been unfaithful to him with his younger brother. Basing herself on the facts that have come down to us about Costanza and the other protagonists, Rachel Blackmore has painstakingly reimagined her life. The reconstruction of the all-important social and cultural context is outstanding, and her conjectures about what happened highly plausible, while her portrayal of Costanza’s inner world is empathetic and engaging. The novel tackles enduring themes: double standards, the abuse of power, and coercive control.

For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain – Victoria MacKenzie (2023, Bloomsbury)

This slim novel brings to life two well known English mystics, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe. They are, respectively, the first woman to have written a book in English, and the first author of an autobiography in English. Victoria MacKenzie imagines their meeting in 1413. She draws on their writings and on her research into the medieval context to offer us vivid portrayals of both. Their personalities and circumstances differ greatly from each other: Julian, a reflective anchoress, and Margery, a chaotic mother of fourteen. And yet, their experiences and spirituality make for a strong connection between the two. MacKenzie balances their alternating voices with a poet’s precision and sensitivity. A luminous reading experience.

Once The Deed Is Done – Rachel Seiffert (2025, Virago)

This is the fifth novel by Rachel Seiffert, whose The Dark Room (historical fiction) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Once The Deed Is Done opens in March 1945, as the collapse of the Reich draws near. A multi-point-of-view narration gives us access to the thoughts, choices, and personal histories of several inhabitants of a Northern German village. Ruth, a British Red Cross officer, is tasked with supervising and caring for displaced people in a camp the advancing Allied Forces have just set up on the village’s outskirts. Gradually, a dark, shocking secret harboured by some of the villagers emerges. The novel highlights an issue rarely covered in WW2 fiction: the fate of forced labourers during and after the war. With her moving, unsentimental prose, Seiffert poses tough questions about individual and collective responsibility.

The Painter’s Daughters – Emily Howes (2024, Simon & Schuster) Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the charming objects of portraits by their father Thomas, one of eighteenth-century England’s most acclaimed painters. Emily Howes turns the two sisters into the subjects of her deeply moving debut novel. Molly suffers episodes of mental confusion from a young age and Peggy instinctively shields her. When the family moves from rural Ipswich to fashionable Bath, hiding Molly’s condition becomes harder. Add to this mix a beguiling composer who enters the sisters’ lives, disrupting their close bond and putting Molly’s fragile sanity at risk. Howes steeps the characters’ thinking firmly in the mentality of the era, rendering their feelings, actions, and dilemmas convincing and deeply affecting. The novel delicately examines themes of devotion, mental illness, sisterly love and rivalry, and other family dynamics. It thoughtfully explores the complex area between protectiveness and control in challenging circumstances, without casting judgment.

Vor Aller Augen – Martina Clavadetscher (2022, Unionsverlag) I’m afraid this one isn’t available in English yet. Martina Clavadetscher is a well-known author of books and plays, and the winner of the 2021 Swiss Book Prize. In Vor Aller Augen (In Plain Sight), she foregrounds nineteen women portrayed in iconic paintings: from Cecilia Gallerani in Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine to Victorine-Louise Meurent and Laure in Edouard Manet’s Olympia, from Joanna Hiffernan in James Whistler’s Symphony In White no. 1 to Dagny Juel in Edvard Munch’s Madonna. Clavadetscher not only captures the moments immortalised on canvas, but, above all, lets each protagonist recount her life story in her own distinctive voice. The silenced object of the painter’s (and the viewer’s) gaze thus becomes the active subject, a real-life woman demanding recognition.

And finally, a bonus recommendation: not a novel, but a piece of historical life writing. Fiction can vividly evoke what it was like to live in another era, but so can micro-history and exceptionally well-crafted family memoirs like the one featured below. Originally published in German, it appears in a superb English translation by Jamie Bulloch.

Alice’s Book – by Karina Urbach, trans. Jamie Bulloch (2022, MacLehose Press)

The title refers to So kocht man in Wien!, a bestselling cookbook authored in 1935 by historian Karina Urbach’s Jewish grandmother, Alice. Forced to flee Austria for England in 1938, Alice survived, while her sisters perished in concentration camps. After the war, she discovered that her book had been reissued in 1939 in an ‘Aryanised’ edition: the author ostensibly a German man; and the names of Jewish and foreign recipes germanised. Despite her repeated appeals, the publisher refused for decades to acknowledge Alice as the true author; it returned the rights to her heirs only after being publicly exposed in 2020. In Alice’s Book, the cookbook is symbolic of loss. It offers a powerful vehicle for tracing the devastating impact of Nazi persecution on one Jewish family – dispersed across China, England, and the U.S. – and for honouring Alice’s spirit of resilience, generosity, and hope. It also sheds light on the disturbing reality of companies and individuals that continued to profit from crimes committed against Jews long after the war had ended.

About me: I’m Italian and British, and moved from England to Switzerland a few years ago. I hold an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths College (University of London). My debut novel, That Summer in Puglia, was published in 2018. I’ve just completed the manuscript of my second novel, Habit of Disobedience, set in Southern Italy in the late 1500s. Inspired by true events, this tale of nuns who stood up to the Church explores themes of power, control and female resistance that resonate today.

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews, The narrative potential of the arts

A tribute to A.S. Byatt

Author and critic A.S. Byatt died last week, leaving behind a priceless legacy of engaged, richly layered writing.

Byatt’s work stimulated readers to reflect on the stories she told and the complex questions she raised. A recurring one was the extent to which individuals can shape their own destinies and history, and vice-versa. In her fiction she interwove stories, history, material traces, fairy tales, myths, never afraid to cross the boundaries of disciplines: from literature to psychology, from philosophy to museum studies… Her books of literary criticism are treasure troves of dazzling insight.

The detailed material world in her novels and short stories was emblematic of her attempt to capture ‘the hard idea of truth’ – an attempt she believed all language is doomed to fail at, and which therefore demands accuracy, to achieve even qualified success. My mind jumps by association to pages in which Richard Holmes, whilst retracing Robert Louis Stevenson’s steps in the Cévennes, realises the passage of time makes the enterprise’s perfect success impossible – and yet it must be attempted, with passion and care.

The accuracy Byatt admired in George Eliot, who saw it as a moral imperative, was characteristic also of herself: she never aped nineteenth-century realism, however, but asserted the freedom to incorporate lessons from it in her work. Unsurprisingly, she praised Hilary Mantel’s or Pat Barker’s forms of realism as ‘almost an act of shocking rebellion.’ Byatt wouldn’t be slotted into categories, and instead pointed out that literature’s history is discontinuous – ‘there’s loss as well as gain’ even with Proust, she said, though she admired his ability to combine the ‘truth’ of things with conscious narrative form and though she learnt from him, too.

During my Creative and Life Writing MA at Goldsmiths years ago, we each had to produce a long essay on a topic relevant to our writing. I chose to research the use of art and artefacts in Byatt’s work. She utilised art and artefacts to produce and orchestrate an astonishing variety of effects: to render a description vivid and memorable; ground a story in time and place; define characters and relationships; shape and reflect character development; drive the action forward; illuminate key themes… She could even raise selected objects to the status of a near-character, for yet more purposes. Some artefacts offered the potential for motifs, which she exploited to various ends, including metafictional ones. The way she harnessed the taxonomy of gold, silver and lead in The Children’s Book is a virtuoso demonstration of how recurring metaphors can highlight and connect characters as much as issues.

I applied some of those lessons in my novels, and I’ve since taught for various institutions on the narrative potential of art and artefacts. At yet another – deeper – level, I’m grateful for the encouragement Byatt’s work gave me to never stop learning and experimenting.

Some sources behind this short blog post:

Antonia S. Byatt, Passions of the Mind (London: Vintage, 1993)

Antonia S. Byatt, On Histories and Stories (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000). 

Jenny Newman and James Friel, An Interview with A.S. Byatt (Cercles.com, 2003), p. 7 from http://www.cercles.com/interviews/byatt.html

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

How To Write a Fiction Book Review

Before getting to the ‘how to’, a word about why you might want to review fiction! Here are some reasons:

  • to spread the word about books you love – it can be a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the author for a great read   
  • to hone your creative writing skills: a thorough analysis of others’ work improves our own
  • for some experience of the world of publishing and book publicity
  • to engage with communities of fellow literature lovers
  • to establish your competence in a genre or area
  • to promote the value of the arts (e.g., for their role in educating empathy, openness and cross-cultural understanding).

For me, the last of these points is really important. I’ve therefore reviewed a great deal of literature in translation for The European Literature Network, opera for Seen and Heard International and arts & culture topics for Talking Humanities and others.

So, what to consider when reviewing a work of fiction? Here are my top ten tips.

  1. Begin with a gripping line or paragraph which conveys your overall opinion. It could be phrased as (a) a statement or (b) a question. As an alternative, you could begin with (c) a quote from the book which encapsulates its themes. An example of each:
    • The title says it all: smoking kills – though in the case of this novel, the victim is not the smoker but those he kills (‘and not through passive smoking,’ he clarifies) in order to enjoy the pleasures of a cigarette. We’re firmly in humour noir territory: the book’s incisive, satirical take on modern-day life offers a succession of laugh-out-loud moments.[1]
    • What might drive a left-wing intellectual to espouse xenophobic views and defend the indefensible? How might the community around him react? How would you react if he were your father? In Autopsy of a Father, Pascale Kramer poses uncomfortable questions and tests your tolerance of disquiet.[2]
    • ‘“Fate,” said Arthur. “The capital letter F. But chance is a powerful force, and suddenly you acquire a Fate that was never assigned to you. Some kind of accidental fate. It happens in a flash.”’[3]
  2. Give us a reason why we should read the book / why it should spark our curiosity
    • E.g.: One of the most original novels I’ve read in a long time, The Core of the Sun is set in an alternative present – in the “Eusistocratic Republic of Finland”.[4]
  3. In your plot summary, tell us about the protagonist(s)’ approach to the key issue/conflict/mystery
    • E.g.: Caterina’s process of reconstruction involves acquiring that part of herself which she left to her twin. […] But as she learns to take care of their elderly mother, of Olivia’s son and of a young neighbour who has lost her little girl, she understands that it was too simple for her and others to rely on Olivia.[5]
  4. What questions does the story raise?
    • Does it interrogate and challenge any stereotypes? Or the opposite?
    • Does it prompt us to read relevant books?
    • An example of questions raised: Raimo leaves readers to judge: was there any love at all on his part, or only desire, fetishism, possession and the drive to dominate, self-justified with the word ‘love’? Can any of these ever coexist with love, or do they often taint it, but only to hardly perceptible and therefore unrecognised degrees?[6]
  5. Tell us how the book makes you feel   
    • What, if anything, will move us? Or amuse us, etc?
    • What causes that response? It could be an episode, or the language, or…
    • E.g.: It would be incorrect to infer too much neatness from the symmetries in the book’s structure. The subtle play of balance and counterbalance constantly engages the reader, while offering a reassuring framework to explore the chaos of complex issues with no easy answers.[7]
  6. What might this book add to readers’ lives?
    • E.g.: ‘A Whole Life’ attests to the enduring value of just this kind of ‘lightness’ – a lightness of touch which offsets the depth of Robert Seethaler’s themes, distilling them into thoughts and images that linger in the reader’s mind.[8]
  7. Select your quotes carefully
    • The ones you choose should illustrate your points
    • Try to find one or two that are representative of the book as a whole
    • E.g.: He possesses the ability to capture the joy of the earth warmed by the sun under his “night-damp feet”, the wood which “had stored the warmth of the last days of summer and smelled of dry moss and resin”, and the coolness of a flat rock on which he lies down.[9]
  8. Analyse the author’s (and the translator’s, if it’s a foreign work in English) treatment of the most relevant elements of writing, such as:
    • individuality of voice (style, language…)   
    • characterisation
    • sense of place
    • structure
    • E.g.:
      • The writing alternates wit and humour with darkness and melancholy, dramatic tension with aphorisms, the real with the surreal, poignant observation with optimism. The rhythm of the prose is thus pleasantly engaging, and the plot suspenseful – not least due to some ethically questionable choices on the protagonist’s part – but more compelling still is the development of the themes over the story’s arc. Antoine Laurain succeeds in creating a first-person narrator who is whimsically and yet realistically unaware of the full depth of his unhappiness until he has distanced himself from it.[10]
      • Authors of intimate stories that reflect the course of a country’s historical fortunes face a challenge: to create fictional protagonists we’ll care about without their writerly imagination being clipped by the magnitude and details of nationally significant events. Aareleid deftly overcomes that challenge, giving us believable human beings through the eyes of…[11]
  9. You can mention relevant novels or short stories by other writers   
    • E.g.: The themes may bring to mind Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but it would be a disservice to both authors to insist on comparisons.[12]
  10. Ensure your review’s ending addresses your central idea  
    • E.g.: This is a book which challenges you to work hard and amply rewards you for it: a gripping read in its own right, and fiction that enhances our engagement with the world we inhabit.[13]

Another, more general, tip? Read the work of top professional reviewers such as Claire Armitstead, Boyd Tonkin, Fiammetta Rocco and Rosie Goldsmith to keep learning from the best!  

References:

[1] Review of Antoine Laurain’s Smoking Kills for The European Literature Network: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-smoking-kills-by-antoine-laurain/

[2] Review of Pascale Kramer’s Autopsy of a Father in The Swiss Riveter magazine: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-autopsy-of-a-father-by-pascale-kramer/ 

[3] Review of Daniel Kehlman’s F, p. 65 of The German Riveter magazine: file:///C:/Users/mvwar/AppData/Local/Temp/GermanRiveter_FINAL_pages_with-covers_SMALL-1.pdf

[4] Review of Johanna Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun in The Nordic Riveter: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-the-core-of-the-sun-by-johanna-sinisalo/ 

[5] Review of Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s Bella Mia for The European Literature Network:  https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-bella-mia-by-donatella-di-pietrantonio/

[6] Review of Veronica Raimo’s The Girl at the Door for The European Literature Network: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-the-girl-at-the-door-by-veronica-raimo/

[7] Review of Di Pietrantonio’s Bella Mia, op. cit.

[8] Review of Robert Seethaler’s A Whole Life for The European Literature Network: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-a-whole-life-by-robert-seethaler/

[9] Ibidem

[10] Review of Antoine Lauraint’s The Portrait for the European Literature Network: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-the-portrait-by-antoine-laurain/

[11] Review of Kai Aareleid’s Burning Cities in The Baltic Riveter: https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-valeria-vescina-reviews-burning-cities-by-kai-aareleid/

[12] Review of Sinisalo’s The Core of the Sun, op. cit.

[13] Review of Raimo’s The Girl at the Door, op. cit.

Image Credits:

Assorted Titles by Ed Robertson on Unsplash

Woman Using Laptop by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels

Other images: European Literature Network, Seen and Heard International, Talking Humanities, Italian Cultural Institute