LEIGH ROSE

Leigh Rose is the American Fiction Author of the ©”Legends on the Rise Novel Series” for which she received the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award in Literature (2023).

Leigh’s fiction novels redefine the genre, exploring themes of identity, racism, and heritage with historical detail and often times cultural perspectives that are left in the wind.

Leigh is completing three, stand alone mystery novels that explore family loyality. They will be published in 2026.

LEIGH’S STUDIO

EDUCATION

M.A. University of North Carolina, Creative Writing. 2010.

B.P.M. (Bachelor of Public Management) Florida Atlantic University, Arts Administration, Business Management, and Public Policy. 2003.

B.F.A. (Fine Art) University of North Florida, Painting. 2001.

CURRENT WRITING PROJECTS

©Double Orphan is about Angie Olivetti, a native of North Beach, San Francisco, in California and an investigative journalist and her quest to find the people responsible for murdering her parents, in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, when she was nine years old.

The novel opens in 2013 when Angie goes undercover with a team of journalists to investigate a mining sting at Burgos Basin, in Northeastern Mexico, at the border of Texas. Arturo Lopez, a Mexican miner claims Mexico’s cartel are smuggling natural gas and oil over the U.S. border for a Texas refinery.

Seeking asylum in the U.S. for his testimony, a team of investigative journalists at SFH take the lead to rescue the Lopez family, hiding out in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains from cartel death threats.

But when the team gets to Mexico things go south. Angie’s Uncle Johnny confronts the cartel he suspects murdered her father, his brother, in 2008. The outcome couldn’t be more disturbing.

©Murder at Sweet Life Inn takes the reader back to WWI in 1915; the Forni family restores a farm house for wayward soldiers, in Campobasso, Italy, and name the agriturismo, Sweet Life Inn.

As the war engulfs the quaint mountain village, the Forni’s survive by learning the art of “trilling” Warbler songs and calls that helped to protect villagers from the onslaught of enemy gunfire. Before of the onslaught of WWII, a Forni descendant moves to Princeton, New Jersey and opens a bakery, Sweet Life Bakery.

However, in 2013, tides turn for the Forni family, when their cousin, Luna, is a person of interest in a crime of passion at Sweet Life Inn. Aghast, the Forni’s in Princeston, New Jersey, travel to Italy to convince the Carabinieri that their cousin is innocent. Witnesses at the inn claim they heard unusual trilling at the scene of the crime. To exonerate Luna, the villagers hold a “trilling contest” to prove who the murderer really is: A tone deaf songster.

©SPECIAL AGENT: Valentine Day is a spy thriller.

SPECIAL AGENT: Valentine Day is about the Stiles family and their role in catching a mole, in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) during a joint counterintelligence operation between the United States and Russia.

When the couple is invited to speak at Moscow’s 2007 Artificial Intelligence International Conference, in Russia, it’s on Valentine’s Day, when Maggie goes missing, in Moscow. Ned surmises his wife’s disappearance has everything to do with the classified biochemistry project she’s working on for the CIA.

However, after a yearlong CIA investigation into Maggie’s disappearance, the CIA tell Ned his wife was kidnapped by Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives and she’s deceased. Upset and angry, Ned buries his wife and the mother of their two boys without a body. But his suspicion that Maggie may still be alive still haunt him so he patents, AI-QFP, his Artificial Intelligence & Quantum Forensics Program that he swears will change industry standards by finding his missing wife and Demetri “The Wolf” Volkov, a former CIA asset gone rogue and mole working as a Russian Foreign Intelligence Service officer and mole in the SVR before he steals and sells Maggie’s bio-chemistry research to terrorists.

Leigh was born and raised in Queens, a suburb of New York City. She currently resides in Florida, where she enjoys spending time with her daughter and grand daughter as well by traveling, reading, cooking and watching movies and TV series.

As a teenager, Leigh developed her talent and skill in the visual arts as a prolific visual aritist through adulthood, as well as researching her genealogy. Her parents would often tell her stories about their life and kept photo journals and documents related to their family’s ancestry, Leigh’s DNA is 74% Greek; Cyprus and Crete, Italian; Venetian, Amalfi Coast and Campania; 20% West Asian and 6% Eastern European.

LEIGH’S PARENT’S, GRANDPARENT’S & ANCESTOR’S

Leigh’s father, Andrew James Messano, was born in the U.S. A WWII Navy veteran stationed on a US aircraft carrier in the Hawaiian-Pacific, luckily he was on annual leave on December 7, 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Leigh’s paternal grandparents, Martino Messano and Carmela Maria Ventimiglia, immigrated to the U.S. in 1901 from the Provence of Salerno, in Italy. Leigh’s mother, Antonietta, (Nittoli) Messano, immigrated to the U.S. in 1931 with Leigh’s maternal grandmother, Victoria (DeConza) Nittoli, with two brothers. Leigh’s maternal grandfather, Antonio Amato Nittoli (baptized; Amato Maria Nittoli) had immigrated much earlier, in 1913 with his oldest son.

During the nineteenth century, the Nittoli’s owned a large farm where they manufactured goat’s milk for Lioni, the capital of manufacturing goat cheese. Amato Maria Nittoli immigrated to America during the Italian Diaspora, in 1913. Concurrently, and before becoming a U.S. citizen, Antonio served in the Italian army during WWI, May 1915 and awarded a medal of honor for his bravery at the Battles of the Isonzo (1915-1917) defending Italy against Austro-Hungarian Powers, alongside the Allied powers of France, Britain, and Russia. Italy’s allegiance to the Triple Entente was finalized with the Treaty of London, which promised Italy, but failed that after winning WWI Italy would regain lost territories. When this didn’t happen, it instigated the National Fascist Party to form in Italy from 1922 to 1943, with Benito Mussolini as prime minister. Fumed, Italians called helping to win WWI, ” a mutilated victory” and deterred to join the Allies during WWII, and instead the 1940 Axis power alongside Germany under Mussolini.

The Battle of Isonzo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_the_Isonzo

In America from 1913 to 1930, Amato Maria Nittoli becomes a very successful businessman. In 1930, he becomes an American citizen and his wife, Victoria DeConza-Nittoli and their remaining three out of five children, Danny, Mike and Leigh’s mother, Antoinette Nittoli-Messano, to immigrate to America, in 1931.

In 1950, Amato Maria Nittoli is knighted as Grand Official of the Order of Constantine of Antioch with (2) merits, by Supreme Pontiff, Pope Pius XII for his humanitarian deeds for Italians in both America and Italy after WWII. Italy transitioned from a monarchy to a republic on June 2, 1946, an event still celebrated as Festa della Repubblica.  

With many philanthropic projects behind him, Antonio writes and publishes his memoir: A Benefactor: The Grande Ufficiale Antonio Nittoli. His autobiography is given to Leigh Rose at the age of sixteen and later translated from Italian to English by her as a date for hire project with Susan Connors, of Cape Cod, MA. In return, Leigh paints Susan’s portrait pictured below.

NITTOLI NOBLE COAT OF ARMS

The Nittoli’s have a coat of arms and Leigh is its armiger. The colors and shield symbolize allegiance, nobility and honor: Yellow for gold, red for military strength and magnanimity and blue for loyalty and truth. The shield depicts allegiance to Charles of Anjou, as Anjou’s label had four red bars across the upper length of the noble shield. Eagles on the shield represent allegiance to the Catholic Church and fleur-de-lis to France, since Charles of Anjou was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the House of Anjou-Sicily from 1266 to 1285. The Nittoli coat of arms is archived in Florence, Italy, and a second original is with Leigh Rose.

Leigh’s Armiger

Leigh is also related to the famous sculptor, Pietro Nittoli, and a second Antonio Nittoli; the 19th century nobleman and former President of the Italian Royal Institute of Medicine.

Pietro Nittoli, and Antonio Nittoli, the 19th century famous Baroque polychrome wood sculptor during the mid-18th century. His sculptures are still admired today in many Southern Italy churches, especially in Campania, Italy, and cited by many scholars. One article is titled “Masterpieces of Middle Earth. Works of art from the Middle Ages to the Baroque.” An image of one of his sculptures is pictured below:

Archangel Saint Michael Fighting Satan