Sangue delle Langhe. La saga dei Barolo

It was at the lavish coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris that Juliette Colbert met Tancredi di Barolo: it was love at first sight, and a few years later Juliette became Giulia di Barolo, his wife, and followed him to the splendid yet terrible Turin of the Restoration. Meanwhile, in the prisons of the Savoy city, the proud Angela Agnel, a wife-killer, is locked up: she stabbed her drunken husband as he attempted to abuse their daughter. Different women, lives at opposite ends of the spectrum that fate takes pleasure in intertwining, amidst the ferment of the Industrial Revolution, the first struggles for workers’ rights, and the social gains of which Giulia di Barolo soon becomes an intrepid advocate. There is much to be done, first and foremost in the prisons, where prisoners languish with no hope of redemption, but also amongst the city’s poor who demand bread and justice. And Giulia finds time to manage the family estates in the Langhe as well, where a modest wine is produced which, with the new methods imported from France, could become a more noble and full-bodied nectar. The Turin aristocracy wonders: why all this frenzy? Perhaps because the poor little Marquise of Barolo cannot bear a son? Perhaps, if she focused on her family, things might change? And Giulia is willing to go to great lengths to bring the long-awaited heir into the world: medicines, therapies, even spells. But she is not willing to give up her ideas, nor her love, nor her battles. The blood of the Langhe flows through these compelling pages: in the veins of the protagonists, in the fruit of the vineyards, in the crimes that stain the run-down neighbourhoods of the common people, and in the revolutions brewing within the halls of power. And a destiny of blood, trials and triumphs awaits two daring women determined to change their times.