EVERYTHING WE THOUGHT WAS TRUE by Lisa Montanaro - Spotlight

 

Los Angeles lawyer Lena Antinori has dedicated her career to fighting discrimination, including for the LGBTQ community, but her own family's secret haunts her. At thirteen years old, she made the startling discovery that her father, Frank, was gay and her mother, Teresa, knew. Fearing social stigma, Teresa instituted a code of silence meant to protect their Italian Catholic family—a code Lena adhered to for decades.

Now, Frank plans to marry his partner, and he wants Lena to help plan the wedding. Lena is torn between maintaining loyalty to her mother and supporting her father's newfound happiness. As her father’s wedding approaches, Lena learns her childhood wounds run deeper than she thought, and failing to heal them might sentence her to a life of hypocrisy and the inability to discover the true meaning of coming out.

Told by Lena in the present, and her parents in the past, Everything We Thought Was True examines how the truth doesn't set you free until you embrace it. 


Lisa Montanaro is part no-nonsense Italian American New Yorker and part sunny Californian. She has a unique background as a performer, teacher of deaf students, lawyer, coach, speaker, and author. Everything We Thought Was True is her debut novel. Lisa is also the author of The Ultimate Life Organizer, published by Peter Pauper Press. She serves as webinar host for the Women's Fiction Writers Association and is a member of its diversity and inclusion committee. She is also the facilitator of the Retro COLAGE group for adult children of LGBTQ parents.

When not writing, Lisa enjoys cycling and hiking with her veterinarian husband, tending to her garden, and chasing after her rescue dogs. Lisa has enjoyed living snow-free since 2012 in Northern California, where she’s made it her mission to sample the wines of the region.

Her blog and newsletter, Prosecco & Prose, are where she shares writerly musings, book recommendations, and virtual bubbly—both the liquid kind that goes in a champagne glass and the infectious enthusiasm kind of an eternal optimist!

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