War Stories and Letters From Italy

Monika Oltvay is a secretary at the US consulate in Hungary during the run up to World War II. Her father is a Hungarian general, her boss an American diplomat. She falls in love with an American visiting the consulate, but enemies are closing in, and no one is safe anymore. Vincenzo and Giulio Sposito are identical twin-brothers, heirs to a large and prosperous estate, called Acquasanta. When they are 8 years old, their parents die in a tragic accident, and their uncle raises them. But the war is also in their backyard, and they must choose which side to fight on. War Stories is an epic tale of multiple families spanning the continents during the world's greatest conflict. Little do they know, their paths are converging. Letters from Italy: In these winsome letters from Rachel, a woman studying in Italy, to her friends back home, everything can be found: the disappointed reflections on a recent break-up, amazement at finding herself in the middle of a new culture, and even the gentle rise of the possibility of new love. The shortest of Ragusa's three works, Letters from Italy shows remarkable insight into the life of a woman abroad.