Ms Thriller

The life ofElisabetta Cametti, a 1996 Bocconi graduate in Business Administration, takes place between Brusnengo, a small town in Piedmont near Biella, and London, where she collaborates with the Eaglemoss international publishing corporation. But she owes her recent and rather unexpected fame to a thriller,K I guardiani della storia[K: The Guardians of History], which, published last October, quickly made the Italian bestseller list. Elisabetta has been writing since she was a child, but her career as a writer was not planned for: "At Bocconi, I studied marketing and experienced it as the most dynamic part of my curriculum: those were the first steps on path of creativity. But the decisive push to start my literary adventure was my arrival at De Agostini, where I held several positions until I became Head of the Collectibles Division for Italy." A creative role where Elisabetta coordinated a team of people capable of developing 60-70 new products a year, also for the international market. "However, the most important thing for me," says Elisabetta, "was breathing the atmosphere of a large publishing house, and walk down those corridors where innovative products were born."

Elisabetta Cametti stayed at De Agostini until 2010. Then she started her own company (Esense srl) whose mission is to provide consulting services for publishing startups and create intellectual property in TV, publishing, and toys. Her first book began to take shape. Her genre was to be thriller fiction. Her protagonist a woman, Katherine Sinclaire. "Thriller fiction is the ideal medium for me. It's where I can write with pace and suspense about mysteries of ancient civilizations and a character that share my values: integrity, respect for others, self-confidence, the protection of every life form, the desire to build, and the necessity of overcoming pessimism, envy, falsehood, selfishness. The background is the Etrurian civilization, due to my passion for history."

Elisabetta signed with an agent and in early 2013 the novel got sent to many publishers. Giunti ended up securing publication rights, and launched the book for the Christmas season. "The book came out in October and immediately jumped to the 15th place in the list of Italian bestsellers. It has been reprinted three times and has also been successful as an e-book. A somewhat unexpected success, which pushes me to go on and make a serial character out of Katherine". Elisabetta Cametti is already working on her second novel, with a whole new plot. "The idea is to write a book a year," she says, "and heavily invest in the character so to become a regular rendez-vous for readers". In April, she will present her thriller novel at the London Book Fair, in order to sell it on international markets. What's next? "This is the stuff of dreams", says Elisabetta with a smile, "but the ultimate ambition is a film adaptation. As a movie or TV series. Or perhaps both..."