Lindsay Marie Morris

It's been a long journey—four years, to be exact. But my book baby is due to be born January 16, 2025. I am so grateful for all of the support I've received and am blessed to be working with Storm Publishing, who saw my vision and shepherded this project to reality. You can now pre-order The Last Letter from Sicily; advance reader copies will be available on December 20. 

Below, you will find the book jacket copy, which introduces Concetta and Gaetano, who were inspired by my Sicilian grandparents. The story is fiction, but their enduring love—against the odds—will forever be remembered. 

"My dearest Gaetano, if this letter reaches you, know that my heart remains under the Sicilian stars where we made our promise..."

Sicily, 1939. Seventeen-year-old Concetta has just received life-changing news: her family is leaving their sun-drenched Sicilian village and moving to America. Desperate to stay with her secret love, Gaetano—a fisherman's son her father would never accept—Concetta spends one last night with him beneath a blanket of stars. There, among the citrus-scented air and cricket song, he hands her a leaving gift: a fountain pen, with a promise to keep their love alive through letters—and return to one another one day.

In America, Concetta refuses to let go of her dream of returning to Sicily, even as she struggles to navigate a strange new world of factory work and prejudice. Her letters to Gaetano become her lifeline, each one carrying fragments of her heart across the ocean. But when Italy declares war on the United States, Gaetano's letters suddenly stop. As Concetta faces pressure to let go of her past and accept her new American life, she yearns to discover Gaetano's fate—even if it means crossing a war-torn ocean to find him.

From the terraced hills of Sicily to the brewing tensions of wartime America, this richly woven tale of forbidden love and impossible choices will break your heart and put it back together again. Perfect for fans of Kelly Rimmer, Rhys Bowen, and Angela Petch, The Last Letter from Sicily asks just how far you would go to keep a promise made beneath the stars.

>>Pre-order The Last Letter from Sicily today!<<

My author journey started with an interest in the story of my Sicilian grandparents, my Nonna and Nonno, who were separated during World War II but found their way back to one another. I wrote about it as a student in Los Angeles's popular Writing Studio class, where teacher Elana Golden encouraged me to pursue novel writing.

Nonna was 18 years old when she and her family moved from Porticello, Sicily, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the late 1930s. They sailed aboard the legendary Rex, which appears in Federico Fellini's Oscar-winning Amarcord. 

Once settled in Wisconsin, Nonna worked as a seamstress at a garment factory called Junior House. During the war, Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Production Board, which converted factories of peacetime industries into manufacturing plants for military equipment. And Nonna and her fellow Junior House seamstresses transitioned to sewing parachutes. 

My Nonno, the son of a tabaccheria owner, remained in Sicily until Italy joined the war on June 10, 1940. As a soldier in the Italian Army, he was stationed in Cagliari, Sardinia, the site of a series of Allied bombings. In later years, he said little about his military involvement but asserted that his loyalty was to King Victor Emmanuel III. 

I found their stories fascinating, particularly the fact that their love could survive the time and distance that separated them. As I continued writing, the story evolved. It was no longer about Concetta and Gaetano Agnello but instead about two fictional characters named Concetta Balistreri and Gaetano Alioto. That tale is woven into The Last Letter from Sicily, a historical novel that sheds light on the Sicilian experience during World War II. And now I look forward to sharing it with you!

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