ABOUT LINDA
LINDA CARDILLO is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed novels Dancing on Sunday Afternoons (2007, 2016), Across the Table (2010), The Boat House Café (2014), The Uneven Road (2016), Island Legacy (2017) and Love That Moves the Sun (2018), as well as two novellas, children’s fiction and a cookbook.
Early Career
In an earlier life Linda worked as an editor of college textbooks before earning an MBA at Harvard Business School at a time when women represented only 15% of the class. Armed with her Harvard degree, she managed the circulation of Inc. magazine during its successful start-up, founded a catering business and then built a career as the author of several works of nonfiction, from articles in The New York Times to books on marketing and corporate policy. After directing a deeply satisfying fundraising campaign as a volunteer, she turned to the nonprofit sector and led development operations for academic and cultural institutions for nearly two decades.
The Writing Life
Throughout her professional life and while raising her family, she nurtured her intention to write fiction. She studied with Jill McCorkle at the New England Writers’ Workshop and Julia Alvarez at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and then went on to teach creative writing before her award-winning debut novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, launched Harlequin’s Everlasting Love series in 2007.
Critical Acclaim
Linda’s most recent novel, Love That Move the Sun, won the 2019 NYC Big Book Award in Historical Fiction and was a finalist for Foreword’s Indie Book of the Year. Kirkus Reviews called the book “. . . a sweeping historical epic and a sensitively observed exploration of the passionate friendship between Colonna and Michelangelo,” and Historical Novel Review wrote, “Linda Cardillo’s writing is exquisite, inviting the reader into total immersion in this life story of a challenged and challenging woman who left an indelible mark on Italian and spiritual history.”
Kirkus Reviews has praised all three books of the First Light trilogy. It applauded The Boat House Café with “Cardillo evokes the clapboard ports of New England with sensuous prose. . . A sympathetic depiction of the oft-forgotten New England Native American heritage in this picturesque corner of the Vineyard.” The Uneven Road was called “A measured, riveting tale, written in a confident, impassioned voice;” and Island Legacy earned the following commendation: “A tender, spirited family tale to complete a warm, earnest series.”
The Chicago Tribune wrote of Across the Table, “With its realistically complex characters, persuasive plot anchored around life’s joys and sorrows, and abundance of lusciously described food, Across the Table is a splendidly nourishing tale.”
Dancing on Sunday Afternoons has been called a “superbly nuanced, emotionally rich tale of one woman’s journey from turn-of-the-century Italy to America…which…beautifully blends women’s fiction, romance and historical fiction into one unforgettable story.” The novel was included in a bibliography of the immigrant experience created for The Big Read (a program of the National Endowment for the Arts) along with works by Isabel Allende, Jhumpa Lahiri, Alice Munro, Susan Sontag and Amy Tan.
Bellastoria Press
With Ann DeFee, Linda is the co-founder of Bellastoria Press an independent publisher of beautiful stories for all ages—books about women with grit and gifts, who not only survive but flourish; and wildly imaginative and colorful children’s picture books. Bellastoria Press books have been called everything from lyrical and sparkling to quirky and laugh-out-loud. Readers will find stories told from the heart, with an eye for vivid detail, an ear for snappy dialog and a funny bone that gets exercised regularly.
When she isn’t writing…
Linda loves to cook and is happiest when the twelve chairs around her dining room table are filled with people enjoying her food. She speaks four languages, some better than others. She plays the piano every night—sometimes by herself and sometimes in an improvisational duet with her younger son. She does The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink, a practice she learned from her mother. From her mother she also absorbed a love of opera, especially those of Puccini and Verdi, whose music filled her home when she was a child. She once climbed Mt. Kenya and has very curly hair.