a grand family

The Rengonis are the perfect Italian family. Eleonora and Ernesto Rengoni founded one of Northern Italy’s leading industries, and raised five wonderful children, Edoardo, Laura, Raoul, Nicoletta and Stefano. Family is, for all of them, the place of affection and origins, a universe of deep ties from which it is impossible to escape.

On the day of Ernesto’s sixty-fifth birthday everyone is busy preparing to celebrate at the family’s large villa, Inverigo. Only Edoardo (the eldest son who has long since replaced his father as head of the company) is missing. The private plane in which he is traveling crashes due to bad weather and his trail is mysteriously lost. His wife Chiara, suddenly alone, is forced to contend with family hostility, mostly from Eleonora, who criticizes her lifestyle. Raoul is the only one who shows Chiara some support; maybe because they had a brief relationship before her marriage to Edoardo.

Some financial problems threaten the family equilibrium: the company is in danger, risks bankrupt, with everything seeming to be linked to Edoardo in some way… He may had lied to all of them, might still be alive. Serafina, Ernesto’s faithful secretary, knows a lot, but refuses to talk.

The family now needs to regain its balance. And it will be this new equilibrium that will lead to further mysteries, new alliances, hidden affections, and old loves. Edoardo’s disappearance sets in motion a series of mechanisms that no one seems able to curtail….

A Grand Family is a contemporary family novel, a saga that, with a mix of romantic comedy, drama and mystery, deals with major issues and important questions: what is a family? On what rules, traditions, feelings, expressed and unexpressed pacts is it founded?