Scent of Your Breath

Melissa P.'s fictionalized memoir, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, became an international literary phenomenon, selling over two million copies worldwide and inspiring profiles in Vanity Fair and The New York Times, as well as a warning from the pope. And all this before her eighteenth birthday. The Scent of Your Breath, the second installment in her series of confessions, is a tale of obsessive love and destructive passion that is "instinctive and romantic, dreamlike and sensual, relentless and touching" (La Repubblica). Melissa, the Sicilian girl from 100 Strokes who was desperate for love and willing to do anything to find it, is now a successful writer in Rome, living with her new lover, Thomas. With his soft body and feminine eyelashes, he is sensual, patient, and comforting--the antithesis of all the men who came before. But as soon as she meets Viola, a young women from Thomas's past, sexual passion and insecurity mount in tandem, and Melissa is consumed with jealousy. Written as a confessional letter to her mother, the story that follows is one of dark obsession, violent lust, and soul-destroying talent, teeming with the ghosts and dragonfly-women Melissa is convinced are trying to steal her man and bring about her ruin. Driven by Melissa's singular voice--that unique and compelling combination of impetuous naivete and poetic sophistication that has mesmerized readers in thirty-one countries--The Scent of Your Breath blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy and delves deep into the disturbing yet strangely familiar mind of a teenage girl terrorized by love.Whiteside, Shaun is the author of 'Scent of Your Breath', published 2006 under ISBN 9780802170224 and ISBN 0802170226.