The Unraveling of Julia

Courtney is Julia’s best friend. They met in their high school’s drama club. Courtney is “biracial” (10), a “manager for an office equipment company, on the road constantly, a creature of the airport lounge” (11), and an “Esther Perel wannabe with Sandler training” (23). Courtney married her husband Paul around the time that Julia married Mike. Courtney often functions as a foil to Julia, such as being interested in facts when Julia is making decisions based on visions. The villa causes them to have their first serious disagreement: “They’d never had cross words, and it felt like a rift was forming between them, which upset Julia at soul level” (122-23). Julia is used to telling Courtney everything.

Courtney comes to Italy because she is worried about Julia. Courtney offers her “characteristic frankness” (252), but comes to support Julia in following visions to find her mother. Courtney embraces Julia’s psychic powers while Julia is still struggling to accept them. Courtney is also willing to physically defend Julia by wielding a steak knife against the co-conspirators and helps track Julia’s phone when she is in trouble.

At the end of the novel, Courtney’s portrait is part of the family tree mural in the nursery for Julia’s baby. Courtney remains a part of Julia’s family, even after Julia remarries and finds her biological mother.

Gianluca is a librarian and Julia’s love interest after her husband dies. He is about Julia’s age, a Scorpio sun sign, with brown eyes, glasses, a “headful of dark curls and an academic air” (105). He works as the director of Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence and drives a Vespa or a motorcycle. Julia compares his “gift of gab” (138) with Mike’s personality. They also share a love of cars. After taking her to the racetrack and learning about her inherited Ferrari, Gianluca calls Julia his Ferrari.

Gianluca is attentive to how Julia is “heartbroken” (135) and assures her that a broken heart is an opening for new love. Shortly after they sleep together, the co-conspirators run Gianluca off the road on his motorcycle and he spends much of the novel in a medically induced coma. He and Julia communicate telepathically during this time, sharing that they love each other and the details of his accident. After he wakes up, Julia helps with his recovery. They get married and the end of the novel features the birth of their child.

While Gianluca is in the coma, Julia meets his parents and sister, as well as his extended family. Sherry Borsoni is Gianluca’s mother. She is from San Francisco originally and has blue eyes and black hair. She accepts Julia as Gianluca’s girlfriend until she learns about the conspiracy surrounding Julia. In response, Sherry forbids Julia from seeing Gianluca. In the end, Sherry comes back around to liking Julia and supports her marriage to Gianluca. She is married to Tonio, who plays a minor role in the novel.

Raffaella is Gianluca’s sister. She has “short blue hair” (234) and a snake tattoo. She immediately dislikes Julia because she is still wearing her wedding rings. Julia tells only Raffaella about the conspiracy; Raffaella tells her mother. After consistently disliking Julia, Raffaella comes around in the end and supports Gianluca marrying Julia.

Fiamma Settimi is Julia’s birth mother and she looks like Julia. Fiamma was called Felicia Rossi as a child. Fiamma teaches the fourth grade and takes her students to the hospital to help them feel better about doctors and nurses after the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also a successful watercolor artist and has exhibits in Florence. Fiamma gave up Julia for financial reasons after becoming pregnant as a teenager; she was estranged from her mother at the time and lacked support. Fiamma believed that her mother was abusive for locking her in the underground cell and ran away from home.

After leaving Croce, Fiamma changed her name to Fiamma and traveled to London, Scotland, and Ireland. She became romantically involved with Roberto Colapinto, who is Tuscan; he is Julia’s birth father. Julia is the one to reveal that Fiamma was originally named Patrizia Ritorno and that her mother was trying to protect Fiamma from her father’s abuse. Once she learns this information and looks through the go-bag Julia found, Fiamma feels guilty for thinking her mother was the abusive one. She regrets never getting back in touch with her mother. However, she is overjoyed to have Julia in her life and supports her new family with Gianluca.

Emilia Rossi is Fiamma’s mother and Julia’s grandmother. She was originally named Elena Ritorno, but changed her identity to try and escape her abuser. Throughout the novel, she is usually referred to as Rossi. Avoiding her abuser caused Emilia to become a hermit. The people in town didn’t like her haughtiness; she believed she was related to the famous historical figure Caterina Sforza. Fiamma “grew up with stories of Caterina’s bravery, intelligence, and boldness” (343). Caterina is prominently featured in the fresco in Rossi’s bedroom. Julia, like Rossi, feels a deep connection to Caterina.

The group of people working against Julia to obtain her villa and develop it into a hospitality complex are the antagonists of the novel.

Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano are the “caretaker couple” (36) of Rossi’s villa. Anna is short, in her seventies, with dark eyes and white hair. She is “from Abruzzo. We know malocchio” (87), or the evil eye. She claims to try to remove the evil eye from Julia. However, this is part of her gaslighting Julia into thinking the villa is haunted and/or she is mentally ill. Anna drugs Julia, and the dog with ibogaine, a hallucinogen. Piero plays a smaller role. He is tan with white hair. Piero and Anna lost their daughter when she was only nine.

Anna and Piero leave the villa and go back to Abruzzo after the underground tunnel is discovered. Piero leaves his gun for Julia. In the end, they implicate Franco as the conspirator who paid them to drug and gaslight Julia to get a shorter prison sentence.

Franco Patelli is a realtor who wants Julia to sell the villa. He is in his 40s, with dark eyes and brown hair. Throughout the novel, he repeatedly brings offers in the millions to Julia and tries to convince her to sell. However, he hides the true intended buyer, the Romagna Group.

Marshal Alberto Torti is the most openly antagonistic of the co-conspirators. He is the police captain of a town near Croce (which is too small to have its own police force), and in his fifties with brown eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. He aggressively tries to get Julia to leave the country and sell her villa. He also is involved in running Gianluca off the road. In the end, Torti implicates other police officers in an attempt to shorten his prison sentence.

Tomasso Lino wears a black ballcap and stalks Julia. She calls him “Ballcap,” and he is referred to as such for most of the novel. He is involved in running Gianluca off the road. At the end of the novel, he is arrested and imprisoned.

Bernardo Vitali follows Julia and Gianluca around in a white Fiat—this is what Julia calls him, and he is referred to as such for most of the novel. He smokes a cigar, is balding, and has a mustache. Like the rest of the co-conspirators, Bernardo is arrested and imprisoned at the end of the novel.

Ciro Nardini is Mike’s murderer. He also tries to murder Julia at the end of the novel. She, and Scottoline, refer to him as Hoodie for most of the novel. Ciro is not only convicted in Italy for his crimes, he is also convicted in Philadelphia for Mike’s murder at the end of the novel.