There is an Eden for everyone, rooted in our childhood. For Riccardo Manes that paradise is a place – wild, uncontaminated – from which he stayed away for too many years: the Tremiti islands.Emerald green water, green maquis on the rocks, bays with thin white sand, opalescent caves and impregnable fortresses: the Tremiti islands are a naturalistic oasis and a stronghold of myths and legends. After twenty years working abroad as a top cyber-security expert, Riccardo decides to come back there with his beloved and beautiful partner Jasmin. He doesn’t return empty-handed: he brings with him a ground-breaking project, or rather a vision, for the development and environmental protection of the archipelago.

Riccardo relies on his uncle and mentor Iano, with whom Jasmin and he explore the islands, immersing themselves in the dazzling beauty of nature. But the idyll is destined to break down very soon. At first warmly welcomed by the locals, Riccardo begins to face the hostility of a community still closed and isolated, while Jasmin finds herself at the center of inopportune attentions. Moreover, the past is knocking at Riccardo’s door with all its unresolved issues, embodied by Alex Fusco, Riccardo’s foster brother, who asked help from him a few years before, but Riccardo couldn’t – or maybe wouldn’t – help him. Then, the rift between the two became unbridgeable.In a crescendo of tension, ancient and dreadful resentments gradually remerge and dangerous secrets about the islands’ hidden life flare up up to the unpredictable ending. Riccardo will have to realize that the Tremitis are not the paradise they seem and that maybe there is no ideal Eden, just places and loved ones to protect and sacrifice for.

Fire at Sea is a powerful, atmospheric and staggering novel, at once mythical and fiercely contemporary. In Pier Paolo Giannubilo’s writing, the lights and colors of the Mediterranean sparkle and the most current themes blend together with the eternal knots of great literature: love, the weight of secrets and denied truths, guilt and redemption.