Letters from Federica

Book excerpt: An outstanding mystery. The protagonist is Leo Orsini a talented performance artist and songwriter, who at the age of six met the girl next door, the girl whom he would love for all his life, the beautiful Federica Russo. Theirs was a true love story, however, it was one which was to be cut short cruelly just two weeks after their wedding, forty years before this story begins. Leo is a generous man who has loved, drunk and eaten to excess all of his life. Surrounded by friends, he has a successful career, lives in a beautiful castle, and has found love again in the form of William, a sensitive and compassionate heart surgeon. He appears to have it all, yet he is still haunted by Federica’s disappearance. Herself a singer, musician, and songwriter, Federica had left a series of letters to him, poems in which she expresses her deep love for him, yet also her fears. But what can she be afraid of, what demon was lurking in the shadows of her mind? How could she the happy, beautiful wife he married, in just a few days turn into a haunted woman who then disappears? These questions torment Leo, and he is racked with guilt wondering if there were things he should have noticed or done. Then, following a private reading of the letters to his close friends’ it is decided to investigate further. As they delve into the true meanings of the letters and re-live their memories of Federica, secrets from the past are revealed, and it becomes apparent that she is trying to protect Leo, but from what?