Each of my books can be read as individual stories about Montalcino and Tuscany, they are not sequels, but by the time I wrote The Terracotta Madonna the world of publishing was struggling with merger after merger of huge publishing houses and publishers begin to grapple with the arrival and then success of eBooks; and Amazon is by now a powerful force in the marketplace. Getting a publisher to publish a print book is becoming harder and harder, while self publishing and eBook publishing is a booming business.
The third of my Montalcino books, The Terracotta Madonna, is a response to my readers requests to know more about how I came to live in this medieval village in the first place, now some 20 years past, and as people review their busy lives and dream of one day living in Italy, or France or Spain, they want to know how long it took, and what I had to do, to become accepted into the life of the village.
The Terracotta Madonna exists; she is on a small naiave wall plaque and it was to her shrine I would walk, with a heavy heart, with sadness, or in tears, over 20 years, as I strove to find answers to those very questions. How to be accepted, to be part of Montalcino in a fulfilling way.
When my literary agent read the manuscript he phoned me and asked:
“Are you sure you want this to be published?”
It is a very personal story, one in which I ’emptied’ my very soul.
The Terracotta Madonna is, at the moment, available only on eBook. Amazon.
