Isabela Solano

There are authors who tell family stories. Solano investigates them.

Her novels operate on two time levels (dual timeline). In the present, there is always a highly specialized expert who encounters a material enigma. This enigma forces her to delve into the past of her own family or that of the former owners. The historical level tells chronologically and with great emotional power how this object — and the secret associated with it — came to be. This creates a strong forward momentum, a gripping suspense that keeps the reader hooked until the last page.

Her instrument is material forensics. No fantasy, no ghosts, no houses that grow on their own. The "magic" in Solano's books is the magic of authentic historical craftsmanship. If a house has a hidden room, it is because a 16th-century stonemason risked her life to manipulate the statics so that the room remained invisible — she was only permitted to build under the name of a male guild master, so she smuggled her secret into the stone itself. Solano combines the sensual, atmospheric density of a grand saga with the satisfying logic of an investigative novel.

Added to this is a prose that is fluid, clear, and extremely suitable for audiobooks. She dispenses with overly long, convoluted sentences, relying instead on rhythm, dialogue, and tactile descriptions. You feel the dust, you smell the lime, you hear the scraping of the chisel.

Isabela Solano grew up in Trieste, in the Borgo Teresiano, between the Canal Grande and the Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia. Her father had arrived from the Salento as a young engineer, from Lecce, where the architecture is made of soft, golden tuff; her mother was a Triestine restorer who taught her that every building tells a story, if you know how to read its layers.

She studied architectural history and materials science at the Università degli Studi di Trieste and worked for years on excavations and restoration projects throughout Europe. She learned how to determine the firing temperature of historical lime, how to read weaving flaws in ancient silk, and how to recognize whether a wooden beam was worked with an axe or a saw.

One day she realized that the stories behind the materials were more fascinating than the scientific reports she wrote about them. She began to reconstruct the destinies of the artisans and their families — and found her true calling in it: writing novels that combine the knowledge of forensics with the passion of literature.

Today she lives in Trieste, in the Città Vecchia, with a view over the rooftops to the Molo Audace. In the mornings she writes at the Caffè San Marco, the literary café that has existed since 1914. When the Bora blows, that freezing northeast wind that sweeps down from the Karst, she closes the shutters and devotes herself to research for her next book.

I write because things have a memory. A diary can lie, a letter can be forged, but the chemical composition of a pigment or the mark of a chisel on a stone never lie.

My heroines are women who have learned to make these mute witnesses speak. They are not passive heiresses crying in the attic; they are scientists, artisans, experts. They take matters into their own hands.

I love grand family sagas, the emotions, the secrets passed down from generation to generation. But I want to offer the reader more than just romance. I want to take them into workshops that no longer exist today. I want to show them how much knowledge, pain, and love are hidden in the things we touch carelessly.

When I write a book, I construct an enigma of stone, wood, or metal. And I invite the reader to decipher it with me.