BooksChatter: ☀☄ An Italian Adventure: It will all make (less) sense when you grow up: The Italian Saga [1]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for An Italian Adventure: It will all make (less) sense when you grow up, a Young Adult Coming of Age novel by Gaia B. Amman (1 November 2015, Kuki Publishing, 383 pages).

This is the first book in the The Italian Saga series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis, trailer and excerpt below, as well as details of the newly released second instalment, Out of the Nest: An Italian Summer.
Also do not miss out on our interview with author Gaia Amman.
Read the first three chapters with Amazon Look Inside. An Italian Adventure is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Gaia B. Amman will be awarding one (1) audiobook copy of An Italian Adventure to one of our readers, and a signed copy of book 2 - Out of the Nest: an Italian Summer to a randomly drawn US winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), interviews (ℚ), reviews (✍) and guest blog posts (✉).

Synopsis | Trailer | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

A humorous coming of age tale of friendship, sisterhood, and family drama set against the gorgeous backdrop of northern Italy.

Recommended for fans of Jandy Nelson, John Green, Neil Gaiman and Sherman Alexie Italy, the late 80s. Leda is a bookish tomboy whose life is turned upside down by shady Nico, who just moved north from Sicily. Their unlikely friendship will evolve through a whirlwind of adventures leaving both kids transformed. Ultimately, Leda will discover that adults aren’t always right, marking the end of childhood and the beginning of everything else.

Recommended for ages 13 and above. Some swearwords, mostly in Italian.

The book is the first in a series following the same characters throughout their life.

Teaser: Excerpt

From Chapter 31

     An intense blue sky patched with clouds filled the space between the pine tops. The sun came and went playfully, crawling from bush to bush. Flavio and I clambered up, side by side, a few meters away from each other. There was no path to follow anyway. The slope was becoming steeper.
     “Hey, Lee! Is this a trail?”
     I moved closer to him to check out a thin path snaking uphill, hidden by the vegetation. “I don’t think so. It seems quite vague and it’s not marked by the usual paint splotches on the trees.”
     “Let’s try to follow it,” Flavio proposed. “We’re going up anyway.”
     “Sure,” I conceded, looking at the trail seeming to peter out in the tall grass, not too far away.
     Yet the path continued. As we walked ahead, more of it was revealed beneath the undergrowth, snaking higher and higher and widening, revealing a bit of ground pierced by small boulders and carpeted with pine needles. The scenery became more and more beautiful, rocks, pine trees, and blue sky.
     We emerged from the trail on a small plateau and were stunned.
     In front of our mesmerized eyes unfolded Neverland. A gorgeous grassy glade, flooded by the sun, cut in half by our zigzagging path and colored by countless wild flowers; white, yellow and pink. But this was nothing. The place was alive with a sea of butterflies. It was clearly enchanted. I had never seen so many butterflies all at once, or probably ever. Orange, white and yellow, iridescent blue: they fluttered in a playful summer chorus of crickets and wind.
     The only joy greater than making an incredible discovery is to share it with your best friend. When I recovered from the astonishment, I turned to look at Flavio, and I found him still mouth agape. He turned around to look at me and smiled, eyes full of flowers, magic, and butterflies. “WOW!”
     It looked like we had found the secret fairy world of Afes, after all.
     We continued on the trail, breathing in every scent, looking at each butterfly, listening to every cricket and trying to make as little noise as possible, terrified at the prospect of breaking the spell. After the clearing, the path curved behind a hill and started climbing again. We hiked up for a while at a good pace, until we reached the top of a hill covered with more pine trees, flowers, rocks, moss and heather.
     The surprises weren’t over yet. On the very top of the hill, between the tallest pines, someone had built a throne of wood on which we climbed incredulous to watch the sunset. It was so wide we could both sit side by side.
     “This is incredible!” Flavio exclaimed, still in awe.
     “Incredible,” I echoed.
     And then we didn’t say anything else, because sometimes words just aren’t enough.

An Italian Adventure
Available NOW!

UK:

US:

The Series: The Italian Saga

The Italian Saga is a series of books following the same characters throughout their life. The books are humorous and irreverent, yet insightful dealing with themes like family, sexuality, abuse, friendship, love, and self-discovery against the gorgeous backdrop of Northern Italy.

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Out of the Nest: An Italian Summer [2]

Crushes, friendship, and intrigue against the gorgeous backdrop of Northern Italy.

ITALY, 1990. At eleven, Leda is a bookworm and a tomboy. As her world splits into girls and boys, she can t seem to fit anywhere. On the background of the 14th FIFA soccer world cup, Leda embarks on a new series of adventures dealing with hormones, periods, zesty boys and her own fears in what will be the best summer of her life.

Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Sardinia, the Dolomites, and Tuscany, this humorous yet insightful journey through first love, friendship, and first kisses will leave you breathless, marveling at the customs of a country most people think they know.

[Published 30 January 2016, 248 pages]

back to series | back to top

About the Author

Gaia B Amman was born and raised in Italy. She moved to the United States in her twenties to pursue her PhD in molecular biology. She’s currently a Professor of biology at D’Youville College in Buffalo, New York, where she was voted “the professor of the month” by her students. Her research and commentaries have been published in prestigious peer-reviewed international journals including Nature.

A bookworm from birth, she wrote throughout her childhood and won two short story competitions in Italy in her teens. Gaia is an avid traveler and many of her adventures are an inspiration for her fiction. Mostly she is passionate about people and the struggles they face to embrace life. Her highest hope is to reach and help as many as she can through her writing as well as her teaching. She authored the Italian Saga, an irreverent series of humorous and insightful young adult novels taking place against the gorgeous backdrop of Northern Italy. The books, light-hearted and funny at first sight, deal with issues like sexuality, divorce, friendship, abuse, first love and self discovery.

Among her favorite authors are J.K. Rowling, Jandy Nelson, Neil Gaiman, Chuck Palahniuk, Kurt Vonnegut, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Antoine de Saint Exupèry.

Follow Gaia B. Amman:

Giveaway and Tour Stops

Enter to win one (1) audiobook copy of An Italian Adventure.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Enter to win a signed copy of book 2 - Out of the Nest, an Italian Summer (US Only)
a Rafflecopter giveaway