1943. New Orleans. Rose Marino lives with her Sicilian immigrant parents and helps in the family grocery store. Her older brother and sister both joined the Army, and Rose prays for their safety as World War II rages overseas. Her parents expect Rose to marry a local boy and start a family. But she secretly dreams of being more like her fiercely independent widowed godmother. Behind her parents’ back, Rose lands a job at the shipyard, where she feels free and important for the first time in her life. When the parish priest organizes a goodwill mission to visit Italian prisoners of war at a nearby military base, Rose and her vivacious best friend, Marie, join the group. There, Rose falls for Sal, a handsome and intelligent POW. Italy has switched sides in the war, so the POWs are allowed out to socialize, giving Rose and Sal a chance to grow closer. When Rose gets a promotion at work, she must make an agonizing choice: follow a traditional path like Marie or keep working after the war and live on her own terms. Inspired by little-known historical events and set to a swing-era soundtrack, The Italian Prisoner is an engrossing story of wartime love, family secrets, and a young woman’s struggle to chart her own course at an inflection point in American history. Book Review 1: “The repercussions of WWII are lovingly rendered through one woman’s story, with an endearing cast of characters who all feel like family by the end.”—LALITA TADEMY, New York Times best-selling author of Oprah’s Book Club pick Cane River, Red River, and Citizens Creek Book Review 2: "… an essential contribution to the treasure trove of Italian American fiction and a transporting page-turner. I want everyone in my family to meet Rose, our inspiring heroine, whose extraordinary story will stay with me for a long time." –CHRISTOPHER CASTELLANI, author of Leading Men Book Review 3: “… intimate historical fiction at its page-turning best.”—PAMELA ROTNER SAKAMOTO, author of Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds Book Review 4: “… a compelling mix of freshness and familiarity, using a female rites-of-passage narrative to transport readers to 1940s New Orleans and to bring alive the timeless challenges of living in a nation at war.”—ANN HAGEDORN, award-winning author of Beyond the River, Savage Peace, Sleeper Agent and more Book Review 5: “… a refreshing addition to the historical women’s fiction bookshelf.”—KAIA ALDERSON, author of Sisters in Arms Book Review 6: “A dazzling World War II love story set in New Orleans that will pull you in from the very first paragraph.”—JENNIFER SMITH TURNER, award-winning author of Child Bride, named the Best eBook of 2020 by the Black Caucus of The American Library Association Book Review 7: “… a beautiful book that will touch anyone who ever dared want more out of life.” —CHARLES FORREST JONES, author of The Illusion of Simple Book Review 8: "The author's keen eye for the history of those years are evident as delightful details of the city at war abound.”—BRIAN ALTOBELLO, author of Whiskey, Women, and War: How the Great War Shaped Jim Crow New Orleans Book Review 9: “With true-to-life family dynamics and the drama of first love, the author invites us to take a passeggiata alongside her heroine Rose.”—SHAUNNA J. EDWARDS, co-author of The Thread Collectors Book Review 10: “… compelling, atmospheric, and refined. A truly magnificent read.” —DIANNE C. BRALEY, author of The Silence in the Sound

During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October 1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair, and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall, bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however, oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the positive legacy of this encounter.

Pregnant...and at his mercy! Charlotte Adair spent her life locked away in a tower. Her father's death frees her to find the one man she's ever loved...only to discover billionaire Rafe Costa is now blind, believes she betrayed him, and is bent on a vengeful seduction! Rafe is shocked to realise that Charlotte is a virgin, but weeks after their scorching encounter, he learns she's pregnant – with twins! To claim his heirs, Rafe steals Charlotte away to his castle, but she is a far from biddable prisoner. She is irresistible, defiant, and Rafe must seduce her into compliance!

A Pulitzer Prize winner’s “fascinating” account of the political battles that led to the end of the Papal States (Entertainment Weekly). From a National Book Award–nominated author, this absorbing history chronicles the birth of modern Italy and the clandestine politics behind the Vatican’s last stand in the battle between the church and the newly created Italian state. When Italy’s armies seized the Holy City and claimed it for the Italian capital, Pope Pius IX, outraged, retreated to the Vatican and declared himself a prisoner, calling on foreign powers to force the Italians out of Rome. The action set in motion decades of political intrigue that hinged on such fascinating characters as Garibaldi, King Viktor Emmanuel, Napoleon III, and Chancellor Bismarck. Drawing on a wealth of secret documents long buried in the Vatican archives, David I. Kertzer reveals a fascinating story of outrageous accusations, mutual denunciations, and secret dealings that will leave readers hard-pressed to ever think of Italy, or the Vatican, in the same way again. “A rousing tale of clerical skullduggery and topsy-turvy politics, laced with plenty of cross-border intrigue.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

One Saturday evening, the commandant of the Rowville internment camp, Captain Waterston, shot and killed a prisoner, Rodolfo Bartoli, who he claims was attempting to escape. Rodolfo, a young prisoner from Florence, had met a local girl whom he was hoping to marry one day.

The eminent cultural historian H. Stuart Hughes examines the works of Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Carlo Levi, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, and Giorgio Bassani--six Italian prose writers of Jewish or part-Jewish origin--and gracefully shows how these writers combine in various measures their ancestral Jewish heritage with recent experiences of antisemitic persecution.