Synopsis

It all begins in the most forgotten province of the Po Valley, where a ferocious grandmother holds her family in check through humiliation and cruelty. For her, money is power, and power is control. The granddaughter, the protagonist of this story, at five years old says to her mother: "When Grandma Viviana dies, I'll dance on her grave in red shoes." Her mother feels guilty: "How did I pass all this on to you? Through blood?" Two lines that exemplify the style that sets the page ablaze. The sound of a fiery debut, ignited by the iridescent hues of malice, for which Chiara Tagliaferri has an absolute ear. And the literary talent to portray it through memorable female characters: her grandmother, her mother, her sister, herself. Strega comanda colore is a novel that sabotages hypocrisy; it is the story of a girl who resists the curse that life has cast upon her. Between violence, resentment, and tenderness. The protagonist grows hungry: she wants love, she wants beauty, but she wants money even more. To free those she loves, she patiently plots her revenge. And then she escapes: from the fog-filled plain to a Rome filled with light. Deprived of everything, but determined to strip everyone of what she desires. Stealing from others to give to herself becomes her true profession. To achieve this, she deceives, mystifies, and discovers she's skilled at ensnaring rich boyfriends who try in vain to fill her chasms. Meanwhile, she lies a lot, to everyone. Until she meets the one person capable of making her vulnerable. A luminous and wicked family saga, the story of emancipation through blood, the epic of a girl who learns an emotional alphabet from nothing and is saved also thanks to the possibility of a great love. A story of witches. Finally.