A saga that has fascinated one and a half million readers in Italy. It’s called Dawn of the Lions and will soon return to bookstores for Nord – the set date is January 13, 2026 – the new chapter in the history of the Florio family. Stefania Auci chooses to take a leap back in time and tell the story of the family’s roots, the tormented and extraordinary path that took her from Bagnara Calabra to Palermo and the events that marked her destiny forever.
Dawn of the Lions
The publisher explains: “We saw them come from nothing, and build an empire from nothing. We saw their empire grow and then become ashes. We saw the heartbreaking parable of the family that for a long moment illuminated the world, but we never saw the beginning. This is the beginning”.
The plot
1772. Bagnara Calabra is a handful of land stolen from the mountain, squeezed between rocks and the sea. Dark, compact, closed. But it is like this, and it is the home of the Florio family. Nothing is easy for them, everything must be defended with effort and determination: from the forge of Vincenzo, a man as hard as iron who works, to the love that Rosa, his wife, has for the many children he had and for the many he lost.
A life founded on pride in one’s name, on the certainty that the present is, at the same time, an echo of the past and the promise of the future. At least until fate comes to break those threads that seemed so firmly intertwined: first the escape of a son, rebellious and dreamer, and his discovery that freedom is exhilarating, but comes at a high price; then nature, more stepmother than mother, which in a few moments crumbles houses, men and hopes; and finally a new dream, far from Bagnara, on an island where there is money and power.
In 1799, when Paolo and Ignazio Florio arrive in Palermo, they don’t know what their destiny will be, but they know what they have been. They fought against a father who wanted them as slaves, against the desperation of those who have lost everything, against the shadows of loved and lost people. An awareness that marks the entire history of the Florios, from beginning to end. And this is the beginning.
This is the dawn of the Lions of Sicily.
The author
Stefania Auci was born in Trapani, but has lived in Palermo for some time, where she works as a support teacher. Her passion for the enthralling, incomparable vitality of the Florio family drove her to write The Lions of Sicilywhich narrates the events of the Florio family up to the mid-nineteenth century, a novel greeted by extraordinary success, including international success, and then The winter of the Lionswhich opened the doors of the Florio myth until the 1920s, illuminating an era full of charm and contradictions.
The cover
