alice’s ‘ink’ trilogy…

It was SO exciting when daughter Alice’s first novel “Ink” (in the trilogy of the same name) was published in February 2017 (“Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever”)… the book launch in London… the excitement… and the reality of Alice becoming a REAL, published author!!
And now, just over two years later, the third and final book in the trilogy, “Scar”, has been published (“Spark” came out last year)… and, again, to much acclaim (typically: “The perfect ending to an amazing trilogy”). Translation rights have been signed in over a dozen countries (I’ve lost count!).
It’s all been a little overwhelming.

I remember when, more than two years ago, Alice passed on a note her editor at Scholastic had received from an Italian editor about “Ink”… and it made me cry:
“I have three little scars, right between my eyebrows. It’s what varicella left me back when I was a kid, and I didn’t have the patience to wait for the scabs to do their own course. Though, those little signs became me as much as they are the shape of my nose, or my bad temper, or the people I know.
When a couple of years ago my cat scratched my first son closest to his right eye, after the initial dread I just found myself thinking that he was now different from how he was born. Life happened to him, somehow: in a parallel universe, there is a different version of him who has not that scar, who is another him than the one I know. And it’s mutual: the one that he knows is the version of me with the three little scars between the eyebrows.
And I do hope that he won’t forget me.
How I loved to become a book. How I loved to be able to have my ancestors’ tales with me. And, of course, to be a reader.
That was what left me those enchanting first twenty pages of INK I had the chance to read before Bologna’s Fair. That is why I insisted so much with the people from Scholastic to keep me posted about the book with the purest, most honest, crystal clearest idea I had bumped into in a long, long time.
Yet, the final text thought me much more. Our bodies heal, our bodies repair. My body doesn’t tell tales on me for every single mistakes. I might have three little scars, but if they are important is because they are my dad coming home to spend some time with me, my mother taking care of me, my sister trying to cheer me up. They are somehow the legacy of a love. Just as the scar on my son is the sign of a cat, and the dread of a father.
I’m not the right kind of anything, like Leora; but I do think that book can save our souls. Can help us remember.
And yes, now, Alice Broadway, I remember you. I will always do.
It will be such a pride to be the one who will make other people in Italy remember you as well”.
Just a bit special when someone writes such things about something one of your daughters has created?  

Of course(!), I’ve read all three books and absolutely loved them. My lovely daughter is an amazing writer and storyteller (I knew she could write, but she REALLY can tell stories!). Last week, I was in the living room when granddaughter Iris was finishing the final book in the trilogy… and the sheer joy and pleasure on her face as she closed the book was an absolute ‘picture’. She’d been desperate to read the final book and, at last, she’d done so (and three days before the actual publishing date!). What a gift it is to be a writer and to bring so much pleasure to readers. I can’t remember exactly how old Alice was when she first announced she was going to be a writer (perhaps 10 years old?)… and, of course, my embarrassing parental reaction was something along the lines of “yes, that’s brilliant dear”!     

But, sometimes, childhood dreams REALLY do come true… (and what a story THAT is!).