Cover image of That Summer in Puglia
That Summer in Puglia, second edition

I write novels, and, occasionally, short stories. My debut novel, That Summer in Puglia, will be out in a second edition in April 2026 from Breakthrough Books. The first edition was the Italian Day fiction entry at the FTWeekend Oxford Literary Festival 2018. Later in 2026, Breakthrough will also release my second book, Habit of Disobedience, a tale inspired by real-life events in sixteenth-century Southern Italy.

Both novels are set in Puglia, where traces of disparate eras still surface and surprise, affecting the present: their legacy includes the coexistence of different perspectives which time has softened and blended, with fascinating outcomes.  Puglia thus offers an ideal backdrop for characters facing the universal task of responding to the inevitable contradictions of  existence – the task E.M. Forster so aptly described as ‘connecting the fragments’.

Vase of Talos, 400 BC, Jatta Museum, Ruvo
Emperor Frederick II’s Castel del Monte
Traditional trulli, Alberobello
Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce, 16th to 17th century

Photo credits:

That Summer in Puglia cover photo: © Salvo d’Avila; all rights reserved; reproduced with kind permission of the artist. Book cover graphic design: Jamie Chipperfield.

Vase of Talos by Forzaruvo94.  Reproduced under a CC license.

Castel del Monte by Marcok di it.wikipedia.org. Reproduced under a CC license.

Trulli of Alberobello by Marcok di it.wikipedia.org.  Reproduced under a CC license.

Detail of Basilica of Santa Croce by Matthias Kuebel.  Reproduced under a CC license.