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Paola Calvetti
The Innocents
Author: Paola CalvettiJacopo and Dasha are loners in life and soloists on stage. Violinist and Cellist. These two damaged musicians find solace in each other. Their idyllic relationship implodes when a tragic accident makes an orphan of Dasha’s infant niece. Dasha wants to care for the child, but not alone; with Jacopo by her side. The only way to convince him is to help him discover who his real mother was and why she abandoned him over fifty years ago.
An Albanian refugee, Dasha arrived in Brindisi during the dramatic exodus in 1991, with nothing but a cello in her arms, and a violent boyfriend. It was tough, but the worst came when one night, she was deprived of ever becoming a mother.
Jacopo is an orphan himself. Left on the doorsteps of Florence’s famous Hospital of the Innocents, he was adopted and raised by a couple who hoped in vain that he would cure their unhappiness. He knows first-hand what it means to be unwanted. And he can’t take that risk on a child.
As Jacopo and Dasha prepare to perform Brahms’ Double Concerto on a warm June evening in Florence’s stunning Hospital of the Innocents, the music of the past and the present, play in perfect unison. And the result is sublime. An intense and compelling novel, in which music and drama intersect in a place called love. And the result is a final, shocking revelation.
Publisher: Mondadori
Publish Date: 2017
Page Count: 132