Interview: Margo Candela on The Neapolitan Sisters

Three sisters. Three sisters. Three vastly different lives. A maelstrom of family secrets.

The Neapolitan Sisters is riotous, provocative tale of family and sisterhood. Maritza is a princess bridezilla, Claudia is the family “fixer,” and Dulcina “Dooley” is finally sober. As the three are reunited for a wedding, their secrets are unravelled.

We speak in-depth with author Margo Candela about the evolution of her writing, challenging stereotypes, control, and writing complex characters.

Show Notes

About The Neapolitan Sisters

Growing up with a kind but alcoholic father and a suspicious, passive aggressive mother, the Bernal sisters each developed their own way of coping: Dulcina had her art and drugs and alcohol, Claudia plunged into her studies and fled to Princeton, and Maritza watched one Disney movie after another in between devouring romance novels.

Now all grown up, the sisters are reunited at last for Maritza’s dream wedding. But they are no less different than they were growing up: Maritza is a princess bridezilla, Claudia is the family “fixer,” and Dulcina “Dooley” is finally sober. With all three Bernal sisters back in their East L.A. home, each begins to take steps to come to terms with each other, their parents, and the secrets from their shared past. While their lives may have taken different paths, they are still sisters at heart.

Visit Margo’s website for a Book Club Kit.

About the author

Margo Candela was born and raised in Los Angeles and began her writing career when she joined Glendale Community College’s student newspaper. She transferred to San Francisco State University as a journalism major, and upon graduation began writing for websites and magazines before writing her first two novels, Underneath It All and Life Over Easy.

She returned to Los Angeles to raise her son and later wrote Good-bye to All That and More Than ThisThe Neapolitan Sisters is her fifth novel and her first after a decade-long hiatus from writing. She once again is living in San Francisco.

Find Margo via her website, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Margo’s recommendations

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