Finding You
Page 19
My wife hands me a cup of coffee, smiling. I bend down to caress her belly. It’s little Sara who should be born in a month. She strokes my hair. I feel warmth in each of her gestures, those gestures which, since that day at the hospital, I decided will be part of my life. The wedding ring she wears. The colour of our child’s eyes. The sleepy good mornings and the passionate good nights. The pink baby clothes tenderly folded on the crib in a little room still empty. Our house nestled in the woods of a little town in the province of Como. The pride and happiness of my father when he visits us. My nephew who calls me uncle. And that half a packet of sugar in my coffee that warms my life.
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Acknowledgements
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Acknowledgments
First I would like to thank you, reader, who chose this book.
Secondly I thank my husband, Luca. To be able to speak about tenderness and love is easy with a person like you on my side. You are my balance, between dream and reality.
To my children, Ilaria and Federico, thank you, for filling the house with your messy, joyful and loud presence. You forced me to find a place of my own where to express myself.
Also I thank my parents, who won’t read this novel because I explicitly asked them not to, for the encouragement to never give up. They never imposed upon me a choice between dream and rationality.
A huge thanks to the Beta readers, who with great enthusiasm approached this project that became collective with all your suggestions and critiques: Chiara Zanardelli, mother and translator; Manuela Busatta, roommate in 2003; Nadia Laura Zambon, great reader and supporter of “all those who write”; Valeria Bernacchia, dear friend, who moved to Palermo for love and reappeared to sustain me.
Thank you to my colleague, the writer Valeria Luzi. She listened patiently to all my questions and shared my many insecurities.
And thank you to those who arrived later: Chiara Penzo, Elena Marras, Francesca Santoloce, Laura Gazzetto, Manuel Sgarella, Manuela Pigna, and Sylvia Kant. Thank you for finding me and for making me feel your affection.
To all my friends of the club, “solito caffe`” with its leader Arianna Ambrosi, thank you for accepting me in spite of my waning monologue. I want to especially thank for moral support: Simonetta de Nicolais, Paola Zucchi, Sara Marrano, Silvia Zampieri, Valentina Vanelli, Alessandra Maniscalco, Massimiliano Pilleri e zia Fra.
To my first reader, Gisella Elefante, “pen pal” since 1980, thank you for giving me a good excuse to begin to write.
To my old friends: Chiara Colombo, Luana De Stasio, Marika Chiurato, Raffaella Pirone, Sara Scandroglio and Silvia Calosso, the first to encourage me toward this adventure, thank you for being able to see beyond my fears.
To the SII pioneers a special thank you. They taught me a lot.
Thank you to all the Newton Compton staff and especially to Alessandra Penna, who with a simple telephone call made a dream possible.
To all of you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
About Danielle Ryan
DANIELLE RYAN is a bestselling author in Italy. Her debut novel Finding You reached no. 1 on Amazon Italy.
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Addictive Fiction
First published in Italy in 2015 by Newton Compton
First published in the UK in 2016 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Danielle Ryan, 2015
Translation © Paola De Camillis Thomas, 2015
The moral right of Danielle Ryan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Paola De Camillis Thomas to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (E) 9781784977481
Jacket Design: Heike Schussler
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