Father Lorenzo, Ezio and Donna, Dino and Sofia, Lucia and Paolo—all the beloved characters are back with new challenges and adventures in the sixth, and last, of Paul Salsini's sweeping "A Tuscan Series."
The new book is "The Fearless Flag Thrower of Lucca: Nine Stories of 1990s Tuscany," and it brings the people of the fictional village of Sant'Antonio, and their relatives in Florence, to the Twentieth Century.
"We first got to know these people during World War II," Salsini says, "and we've followed them as they've lived through the war, the 1966 flood of Florence, the 'monster' of Florence, and even the 1990 World Cup. It's been a long and rewarding journey for all of us."

Among the nine stories is one inspired by an actual event that occurred in Italy in 1991. Thousands of Albanians commandeered a ship and forced it to cross the straights and go to Bari, in the Pugia region. There, sweltering under a blistering sun and with little food or water, the refugees remained on the docks and in a soccer stadium for days. Italy then summarily sent them all back home.

"I learned about this incident watching a documentary film, 'La nove dolce,'" Salsini says. "It had incredible footage of the scenes and I wanted to use that as a setting for a story in which an eight-year-old boy dramatically changes the lives of Dino and Sofia."

In another story, Ezio, the partisan hero of the first, award-winning, book in the series, "The Cielo: A Novel of Wartime Tuscany," has finally finished the novel he had been writing for decades. To his surprise, it's made into a film by one of Italy's most famous directors.

A best-selling real book influences another story as Frances Mayes' "Under the Tuscan Sun" helps turn around a sagging tourist business in Cortona. And anyone who has been thrilled watching the skills of a group of flag throwers dressed in medieval costumes will enjoy the title story, in which a centuries-old tradition is shattered.

As in the previous books, Salsini combines real events with fictional characters, making "The Fearless Flag Throwers of Lucca" a fascinating but also informative read. Although there are separate stories, many are related, with a central character in one becoming a minor character in others.

"It's the late 1990s by the end of the book, and the people are getting older," Salsini says. "It's hard to believe that Lucia and Paolo, who were teenage lovers in the first book, are now celebrating their golden wedding anniversary and that Father Lorenzo and Ezio are retired. We've been through a lot, shared a lot, together."

Information for all the books in "A Tuscan Series" can be found at www.ATuscanSeries.com