Like the Bitter Orange

For readers of Elena Ferrante and in the tradition of the Italian classic The Leopard, a sweeping Sicilian saga of family, ambition, and inheritance set against the rise of fascism, the shadow of the Mafia, and the decline of an old social order.

Sicily, 1924. In the fishing village of Sarraca, where ancient loyalties run deeper than the law and everyone is Sicilian before they are Italian, two young women find their lives bound together by a secret that will reverberate across decades.

Nardina, the daughter of a determined mother who has sacrificed everything to secure her a place among the island's nobility, enters a world of privilege whose promises prove more fragile than they seem. Sabedda, poor and fiercely independent, faces a far more uncertain future. When their paths converge through an act of deception whose consequences neither can foresee, the lives of both women are altered forever.

Years later, Carlotta, a university-educated archivist, uncovers a document that calls her family's history into question. As long-buried truths begin to surface, she is drawn into a search that exposes not only the secrets of her own origins but also the hidden compromises, betrayals, and sacrifices the people closes to her have made.

Spanning four decades, from the rise of fascism to the first stirrings of women's independence, Like the Bitter Orange is a richly textured portrait of a changing Sicily. As aristocratic fortunes fade, old certainties crumble, and new possibilities emerge, its unforgettable characters must reckon with the legacies they have inherited—and decide what they will pass on.

Lush, immersive, and deeply moving, Like the Bitter Orange is a grand historical novel about the forces that shape a society and the hard-won freedom to imagine a different future.

This work has been translated with support from the Italian Ministry of Culture’s Centro per il libro e la lettura.