Elisabetta Flumeri
& Gabriella Giacometti

Some encounters change your life. A cliché? Maybe. And yet in our case that is exactly what happened. We were 18. She was an actress, rehearsing late into the night in damp, dark basements, and by day she studied at university: history of theatre. I was enrolled in humanities, modern history; I organised 'meetings with historians', I read only 'highbrow' literature, and at the cinema only strictly European auteurs.

But at night I devoured Angélique and Gone with the Wind, even if I would not have admitted it under torture. We met by chance at a French class. I remember Gabriella coming towards me with her hand outstretched, saying…

…who, on the other hand, had never thought of doing anything else in life. I know it may sound presumptuous, but a passion is a passion. From the moment I picked up my first book, I discovered a love of reading. The love of writing came right after. At seven I wrote my first fairy tale, which the teacher read aloud to the class. Even then I demanded she get it published!

I can say I always had clear ideas and a precise goal: to become a writer. But not even I imagined I would write as part of a duo…

…and the answer was invariably the same: 'Have you published anything yet?'. We would hang up disheartened. Then we met a wonderful woman, Ivanka Veltroni, Walter's mother, introduced to us by Lidia Ravera. She too wrote romance novels, as a hobby. She too had never published. She suggested we present a 'package' to publishers — the first true seed of a 'network'.

Her faith gave us back the enthusiasm that had dimmed a little. We split up the phone calls… more doors were slammed in our faces, but we didn't give up, and finally one day I got a call:

“This is Anna Giusti, from the Intimità imprint at Cino del Duca Editore. We liked your novel — when can you come to Milan to sign the contract?”

I admit it, I had to sit down. It was one of the strongest emotions of my life. 'Un sogno di cristallo' was our first book. That is how it began, and since then we have never stopped.

Made in Italy has always been an obsession of ours… so much so that after romance we moved on to Lancio photo-novels — made in Italy par excellence and a great workshop for learning how to build stories, even with the limits of immovable constraints. Still, as a screenwriter friend of ours says, it is a fine challenge to slip something new through the obligatory meshes of the genre…

…we said no! We — and in this we are very alike — chose, and paid quite dearly for, the freedom to do what we wanted. We always believed in it, even in the moments — and there were some — when every road seemed closed.

…for better and for worse! Together, we opted for a new adventure: television. We were given the chance to attend the RAI screenwriting courses taught by American tutors, and we seized it at once. That is how our experience with television and serial drama began, leading us to tackle different genres, from comedy to romance, from 'legal' to period drama.

Yes, but a piece is missing: our return to publishing! It all started with an essay by Janice Radway, Reading the Romance, which we were asked to translate and annotate — a 1970s text on why women read love stories. From there began our rediscovery of today's romance world, which had many surprises in store for us.

We discovered the most incredible cross-genre blends, an audience of fiercely committed women readers, a myriad of dedicated blogs, a direct relationship between authors and readers — in short, a world in great ferment. So, once again, we looked each other in the eye and said: why not? We were tired of writing melodrama, melodrama and more melodrama…

And here we are, back to our obsession with made in Italy! All our novels are set strictly in Italy — Tuscany, Capri, Ciociaria, Matera… — they have Italian protagonists and tell the story of Italy, its beauty and its cuisine. Every book also ends with a set of recipes, the winning idea of the duo's cook, Gabriella.

Yes, that happens too. But what matters is that we are firmly convinced that 'two heads think better than one' and, starting with our working method, it is something we never forget.

…where what counts is the victory of the team!