A year after publication, more praise for "The Cielo"

I'm a little suprised that a book published in November 2006 is still receiving attention. It still has "legs," a friend says.

This review was posted last month on Georgetown University's Culture Club webpage:

"This book is written in such a way that it encourages you to read it page after page without stopping. The plot, although it is in the form of a novel, takes place on a realistic plane, sometimes crude, sometimes enthusiastic, at times sentimental. Being Italian, I relished every word, every event, every individual, every action, appreciating the truth of it all up to the final page. The book deals with the period of the German occupation of a village in Tuscany. It chronicles the doings of the residents of this village who were forced to go to a nearby farm, Il Cielo, and who lived close to the tragedies that were taking place at the hands of the Germans and the Fascists in the nearby villages, including the killing of the priest of the village who was in contact via radio with the Allied Forces and the massacre carried out by the German SS in the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema where old women and children were cut down without a plausible reason. This novel, although it is limited to one village in the north of Tuscany, is the real testimony of what happened throughout Italy from the time the country was occupied from September 1943 to April 1945 until the end when the Germans surrendered in that area of the war."

Fra Noi, an Italian American monthly published in Chicago, had this to say:

"Milwaukee native Paul Salsini has written his first novel based on facts and stories he heard from his cousin, who survived German occupation and the Allied invsion of the region where his grandfather was born. 'The Cielo: A Novel of Wartorn Tuscany' recreates actual evnts in an imagined place to deliver a story that's long on action and short on style. This veteran journalist dramatizes thorough research, showing us how World War II was a difficult and dangerous time to be a good Italian."

And in a long review on the Amazon.com site for the book, Roger K. Miller, the author of the new "The Invisible Hero," says (in part):

"Paul Salsini's debut novel, 'The Cielo,' inspired by an episode in his Italian family's history is a marvel of historical re-creation. The pleasure of an artistically satisfying novel is doubled when it also tells you about something you didn't know--in this case, fascinting detail about Italian resistance to German brutality in Tuscany in the summer of 1944…"