Description

In the wake of the strongest earthquake in Italy for nearly forty years and the many aftershocks that followed Italians began speaking of the earth beneath our feet as la terra ballerina the dancing earth The dance they spoke of was unrelenting

Foreign correspondent Christine Toomey spent years renovating her glorious longabandoned hilltop home in Le Marche Italy as a haven of rest from covering crises around the world But in 2016 the peace and beauty of this beloved landscape were thrown into chaos when a series of powerful earthquakes struck the heart of the Apennines

Wracked with grief for a place still reverberating with seismic aftershocks Christine decided that one way of preserving the community was to tell its history

Fuelled by the artefacts uncovered in her attic including oil paintings and lithographs a map thick with dust but showing details of the earthquake that obliterated Messina in 1908 and centuryold letters belonging to the enigmatic priest who had occupied her house a century earlier Christine set out on a journey to tell the story of the earthquakes that devastated the region

The result is a heartfelt insightful and lifeaffirming story about the places that make us and the lifechanging thunderbolts that can come at all of us at any time from any quarter