“Through vivid use of language and imagery Connie McParland moves her readers easily between 1950s Italy and present day Montreal. Ultimately, however, The Girls of Piazza d’Amore is not of either place, or time. It transports us somewhere else — into the heart of memory, and what it means to tell stories.” — Johanna Skibsrud, Giller prize-winning author of The Sentimentalists

“The Girls of Piazza d’Amore offers a richly textured story of immigration and childhood, expansively set, generously inviting, and full of warmth. With this debut novel, Connie McParland weaves a vivid story that attempts to find meaning in the distance between the decorum of present-day Montreal and the restless soul of a Calabrian childhood. In doing so, she joins a rich lineage of modern Italian-Canadian writing – from Nino Ricci’s Lives of the Saints to Vittorio Rossi’s A Carpenter’s Trilogy – in documenting the complex web of families, traditions, loves and losses spanning across decades and the Atlantic.” — Dimitri Nasrallah, QWF award-winning author of Niko.