Goodreads asked Jo Piazza:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

Jo Piazza Oh my god. I can't believe I am only just seeing this question because my latest novel is based on a mystery in my own life. The Sicilian Inheritance is loosely based on the unsolved murder of my great great grandmother Lorenza in Sicily more than a century ago. I have been thinking about fictionalizing this story for years. I think that all families have stories that we tell ourselves, that we pass down, that get warped and changed over time. The story of my great great grandmother Lorenza’s murder was ours. I knew very little about it except that her husband and children came to the United States from Sicily to build a better life for the family. She stayed behind to save money, to sell the land. It’s a little unclear why. And before she could join her husband Antonino she was killed.
That’s all I knew but I was fascinated by the idea of a woman left alone to fend for herself in a wild place like Sicily. And that’s where Serafina’s story began. It honestly just flowed out of me.

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