Did you ever desire to meet Edward
both in his human and in his
vampire persona? What would had happened if Bella and Edward had fallen in love when he was still human and in
a different historical context? You can find fascinating answers to these questions reading
Banner by Federico
Summary: "This is an AU historical novel with vampires, set in Italy during WW II. Edward Masen, an American paratrooper, meets Bella and loves her passionately, until two Volturi warriors make a vampire of him... Nominated for the Hidden Star Awards".
Don't miss it because...
Camilla made a huge
historical research to provide an accurate setting for her fic. She's an Italian author and her description of the difficult Italian situation during the II World War is based not only on history books, but also on
memories from her own family.
She doesn't deal only with the war, but also with the Shoah, with particular attention to the point of view of Jewish characters; her story made me remember also Roberto Benigni's Academy award winning movie
La vita รจ bella (
Life is beautiful) and Giorgio Bassani's novel
Il giardino dei Finzi Contini (
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis).
Although this fic is an AU and although when the story starts we meet a human Edward, her
characters are canon: Edward is thoughtful and has deep values; Bella is passionate and capable of great sacrifices for the man she loves, and she's featured as a smart and strong young woman. They need to be strong, because they're facing
many difficulties: they are from different countries, Italy is at war, and...you'll discover the rest reading this novel!
This is not an AH story and Camilla is very sensitive also when she describes the passage from a human life to a vampiric one: she's capable to summarize this condition, with all the
turmoil of the newborn vampire, with a
few effective sentences, as in her writing style.
"All that I lived for, all that made me what I was, is gone.
My life has been taken from me.
I have killed two innocents already, and I will surely kill again, such is my nature.
My humanity has been taken from me. [...]
I am a monster walking on legs. "You will never sleep again," they told me, "you will never eat again." And I can't cry.
My body has been taken from me".
This story is complete, but it absolutely deserves
a sequel!
Camilla is also a very
perceptive reader and I guess that very few people in this fandom have read as many fics as she has (ask her, I still have to find a good twific that she's not already read!). She offers very fine comments on the Twilight saga on
her profile on Fanfiction.net; I'm sure that they provide many ideas for
further discussion!
