Doric Hotel

Extraordinary friendshipsThe memory of a massacreNovel chosen by the ITALIAN UNESCO COMMISSION for World Book and Copyright Day 2017, to represent the Marche Region.20 books by great Italian authors, which tell the stories of the 20 regions of Italy. For the Marche, Skyscanner chose DORIC HOTEL (Skyscanner.it – July 2016)An exciting metropolitan fairy-tale set-in Ancona and an intense and great story of friendship, tracing the events of the bombings of World War II (Huffington Post)A historical reconstruction adhering to reality (Attilio Pancioni, writer and former RAI journalist)Doric Hotel makes you want to read it all in one go (Antonio Luccarini, historian and literary critic)If you had to describe this book in one word, it would be a “journey” (Stefano Pagliarini, il Messaggero).Lara Isabel is thirty years old, working a job she doesn’t like, many friends and a forbidden love she cannot get over.Dora is eighty-four years old and has a deep wound in her heart, an age-old pain that she has been carrying around for more than half a century. They both live in the historical center of Ancona where, following a chance encounter, their extraordinary friendship was born. Strange coincidences and sad memories, which lead them to relive history, the air raids that devastated the city during the Second World War.Lara Isabel wants to help Dora at all costs, to overcome the terrible sense of guilt that has always been with her since she lost her cousin Giorgia and her best friend Myriam during an air raid, forced to flee from racial persecution, without having been able to resolve their mutual misunderstandings.Lara Isabel’s investigations lead her to an old and picturesque boarding house, where the attic there holds several mysteries that might finally be unveiled…Doric Hotel is a metropolitan fairy tale, intimate and emotional, about the values of friendship and the memories of the past, but it is also a coming-of-age story about a young woman who is struggling with her own feelings to forget a difficult love and will gain, almost without even realizing it, more maturity and a balanced self-awareness.FIND THE AUDIOBOOK ON GOOGLE PLAY AND KOBO!The authorLuisa Mazzocchi holds a degree in law and lives in Ancona, the Italian city where her novels are set. Alongside writing, her passions include theatrical reading and nineteenth-century ballroom dance. She received a civic merit award for cultural achievements from the Mayor of Ancona in 2024 and won a national literary competition organized by the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency, with the award ceremony held in Rome on International Women’s Day 2025.