Mariella of the Ghosts

Many souls stalk the tangled paths of Poveglia, but only one of them can bleed.

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Mariella grew up with ghosts. An occasionally treacherous island full of them, abandoned and decaying in the heart of the Venetian Lagoon. She’s fiercely protective of her loving found family, despite their tendency to get ‘agitated’, and despite her fervent, secret desire to meet someone like her. Someone who still has a heartbeat.

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Alessio lives within sketching distance of the island that captured his imagination, burying himself in books and drawings to avoid his lonely house and absent parents. He’d give anything to paint his daydream into reality: an enchanted life among the crumbling ruins and overgrown ivy of Poveglia, with a family who finally sees him. Gets him. And then he meets Mariella, opening a door that neither can close.

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Over a decade later, Alessio has a career and a passable social life, but it’s all a match in the dark compared to the torch he carries for Mariella. He’s lived in the letters they’ve exchanged over the years, and so has she. No matter how he begs to see her, she hides at every turn, terrified that if she does meet Alessio in person again, she’ll never let him go. But Mariella loves Alessio too much  to thrust him into the dangers of her home, and expose her family to the dangers outside it.

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When a charming developer with strange, prismatic eyes arrives, his bid for Poveglia threatens the island’s very existence. Alessio leaps at the opportunity to win Mariella’s love by plotting with her to oust the developer. Mariella will have to trust Alessio with the truth about Poveglia’s cursed past, risking all their lives—and her heart—for the chance to save her home.

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*Finished and querying with agents!*