Anne Licata-Solaas
WRITING ABOUT FAITH, REDEMPTION, AND BELONGING
I write the stories that stay with me: my Sicilian family's true, hundred-year journey; thrillers built for the Spanish classroom; a pilgrimage that turned my life in a new direction; a missionary who said yes to Haiti.
Some of it is fiction. Some of it isn't. All of it comes from paying close attention to the people and places that changed me.Start with The Scent of Lemons for historical fiction grounded in something real.
Find the Spanish novellas if you teach or study the language.
And if personal essays on faith and pilgrimage are more your speed, subscribe to my monthly Substack, Lessons on the Way.My next book, Where Deep Calls to Deep, is the story of a young woman who walks the Camino looking for answers, but God meets her on the way. Forthcoming in spring 2027 from Elk Lake Publishing.
My husband Steve, and I, standing in Camporeale, Sicily, my grandparents home town, book in hand, a hundred years later.
The Scent of Lemons Trilogy
The Scent of Lemons is based on my family's true story, following the Licatas from Sicily in 1897 to the early 2000s through three generations of immigration, survival, and the shadow of organized crime. My grandparents crossed an ocean to build a life, but both died before I was born.
I pieced their story together myself: archives, court records, old newspapers, and family secrets no one wanted to talk about.
The bones are real; the rest, what was said and felt between two people who loved each other and raised ten children, is my best and most loving speculation.Email me through the contact page, and I'll give you a code to purchase Part One, A Sicilian Journey for only $1.99. at https://tinyurl.com/The-Scent-of-Lemons-Part-1.If you enjoy it, please leave an honest review on Amazon, Goodreads, or your site of choice.
Meeting the mayor and priest of Camporeale.
Spanish novellas for Spanish learners
level C1
You know the problem: B2/C1 readings are either too simple to engage students or too dense to use in the time you have. I spent ten years teaching college and AP/IB Spanish, hunting for something students actually want to finish.Un secuestro en México drops readers into a kidnapping plot set against the streets of Mexico City. Fast-paced enough to keep advanced students turning pages, with audio narration available.Esposados is a psychological thriller set in San Salvador, weaving present-day gang conflict into El Salvador's complicated history. Comprehensive student and teacher guides are included, so you don't have to build support materials from scratch.Both were written specifically for AP, IB, and college-level Spanish 201 classrooms: authentic stories that teach language, culture, and history.
Deep Series Spring 2027
Where Deep Calls to Deep
Sofia Russo arrives at Hills College four years after her sister Giulia's death, looking for answers her grieving parents can't give her. Between distant professors and a boyfriend who mirrors back exactly what she wants to see, she's more lost than when she started.When her boyfriend chooses a Paris internship over walking the Camino de Santiago with her, Sofia makes the pilgrimage alone. She isn't looking for God. She finds Him anyway.Back at Hills, Giulia's hidden diary unravels everything Sofia thought she knew about her sister, and about herself. She runs from what she found on the Camino, straight back into the life she knows how to perform. But grief and doubt have a way of catching up.Where Deep Calls to Deep is a story about what happens when certainty runs out, and faith has to start somewhere else.
Coming in Spring 2027 with Elk Lake Publishing
I JUST SAID YES: STORIES FROM HAITI
Jay Bowen wasn't a pastor or a missionary. He was a general contractor from Southern California who watched the Haiti earthquake coverage on his phone and couldn't look away.What followed was more than a decade of saying yes to disaster zones, impossible odds, and a Haitian pastor named Rosinel who became his closest friend and partner in ministry. Through gang violence, poverty, and disaster, Jay watched something he didn't expect: the Haitians he met didn't break. They sang. They prayed. They planted churches. Their faith quietly dismantled every assumption he'd brought with him.I Just Said Yes: Stories from Haiti is a raw account of what happens when an ordinary person shows up and discovers that God was already there.
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