March 28, 2024
Provided images/Penguin Random House; Andrea Cipriani Mecchi
'The Sicilian Inheritance,' the new historical fiction novel from Philadelphia-based author Jo Piazza, right, will be released Tuesday, April 2.
Jo Piazza's latest book is a deeply researched novel steeped in her own family's history. But the Philadelphia-based author isn't just going after the historical fiction crowd. As she writes on her Instagram, the book also has "witches and a dragon and sex in a cave."
"I think it's harder than ever for authors to get their book in front of readers," Piazza said. "There's a lot of content, be it TikTok or Instagram, in front of us. And so getting the attention of readers isn't always easy.
"I want all of them. Calling fantasy romance people: You will love this book."
Piazza may be marketing, but she isn't lying. "The Sicilian Inheritance," which comes out Tuesday, does have witches, a dragon and sex in a cave — along with a century-old unsolved murder. That crime was inspired by a long-standing mystery in Piazza's family, some of whom emigrated from Sicily in early 20th century. Left behind was Lorenza Marsala, her great-great-grandmother, who was supposed to eventually join her husband and sons in America. But she was killed before she got the chance. It may have been by the Mafia, or because she was a healer (and in many people's eyes, a witch). Piazza has heard many versions of the tragedy over the years.
"My family has been telling this story of my great-great-grandmother's murder in Sicily in like a 100-year game of telephone for as long as I can remember," Piazza said. "My family's full of storytellers and mythmakers and sometimes liars. And I just had no idea what was true. And there's also not that much information."
Piazza, who already has six books under her belt, thought the story was the perfect basis for a "delicious adventure in Sicily" starring a recently divorced mom, Sera, and her murdered, mythical ancestor and namesake, Serafina. The book flips between their perspectives, closing in on the truth as Sera investigates the case in Sicily — a final wish of her recently deceased great-aunt — and Serafina finds more and more of a life outside her family.
As the story reveals, Serafina's growing independence places her in grave danger in old world Italy, but she was hardly an anomaly. The book taps into a real phenomenon that occurred around the turn of the 20th century in Sicily, as thousands of men left in search of work. (Historians have branded the exodus a "mass male migration.") In their stead, their wives took up their old jobs or new work outside the home, creating a sort of matriarchy on the island.
"It felt like a real feminist moment in Sicilian history that I had never heard about, that I wouldn't have heard about unless I'd done this digging," Piazza said. "And that it really felt ripe to just explore right now (with) everything that's happening in the world with restrictions on rights for women."
Crucially, however, one group of men remained in Sicily: the Mafia. Organized crime syndicates had risen to power in the mid-19th century, as the unification of Sicily with mainland Italy kicked up chaos and resentment. The Mafia looms as a threat in the background of both Sera and Serafina's stories, and may have been the cause of Lorenza's untimely end. According to Piazza, her family's leading theory is that her great-great-grandmother was killed by the mobsters over her land, though she suspects some Italian-American relatives may be searching for a "Godfather" or "Sopranos"-esque story.
Piazza had talked to older residents of her family's hometown of Caltabellotta during her past life as a travel editor, and she consulted academics and old manuscripts to research the wider Sicilian history explored in her book. But she had no interest in solving Lorenza's murder — until "The Sicilian Inheritance" was completed.
"I did not want to learn about the real story," Piazza explained. "I was like, I've got this nugget, I'm going to write fiction, I'm in my happy place. But when I did finish writing the novel and it was all down on paper, I did decide to do a true crime podcast where I go back to Sicily to actually solve the murder.
"I went over there thinking she probably didn't even die, like this is all a farce. But the bombshells are pretty great."
That podcast, also called "The Sicilian Inheritance," just released its first episode on iHeartRadio. It follows her treks across Sicily last summer to city hall (and Mafia) archives as she searches for clues into her ancestor's life and death. Townspeople also are featured in the podcast, as well as Piazza's three young children, who came along for the ride.
"You can actually hear my then 3-year-old on the podcast, and in the very like first minute and I'm like, oh, can I say murdered to a 3-year-old?" she recalled. "That said, now they're watching the entire 'Star Wars' franchise, so I'm like, you can listen."
Piazza's kids haven't heard much yet about the mythical Lorenza Marsala. But in the process of writing a novel and then creating a podcast about this dramatic chapter in her family's history, Piazza found a way to not only entertain fans of history, true crime and fantasy romance, but tell an increasingly muddled saga to her children.
"Especially from my generation, that feels really important because I'm only a fourth Sicilian, and yet I grew up hearing these stories and feeling very connected to Italian culture," she said. "My kids are massive mutts. My husband is four different things, I'm four different things. And I think there is kind of a disconnect between where their families came from and also we're so many generations out.
"It's nice to find new ways of passing these stories down. This whole process has made me realize just how important it is for us to document those kinds of things."
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