Julia F. CliffordAuthor
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Books and works in progress

Long stories.
Deep roots.

Atmospheric mystery, speculative fiction, romantic comedy and other adult projects taking shape.

A Serena Walker MysteryThe
Good
Walker
Julia F. Clifford

Work in progress · Adult folkloric mystery

The Good Walker

Serena cannot save her missing cousin without helping the woman who made her disappear.

When Serena Walker moves from Dublin to Rome to study history, she expects lectures and late-night bars, not Gemma’s disappearance during All Saints’ Mass at St John Lateran.

The clues lead to Maddalena, a sixteenth-century Benandante wrongly executed as a witch and trapped between worlds for five centuries. To save Gemma, Serena must accept that she is one of the legendary Friulian “Good Walkers” and find a way to help Maddalena without losing her own soul in the process.

RomeItalian folklore80,000 wordsSeries potential
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The Serena Walker mysteries

Italy, one legend at a time

Six stages of the larger saga are already taking shape, with room for further mysteries between them as the series develops.

Book I · Work in progress

Rome

Benandanti, a vanished cousin and a spirit waiting five hundred years to cross over.

Book II · Planned

Naples

Easter, a sealed liminal door, the Camorra, and a janara-like malandante moving through the city’s shadows.

Book III · Planned

Sardinia

An accabadora asks for Serena’s help, and an old island tradition refuses to remain in the past.

Book IV · Planned

Lucca

A death at Lucca Comics & Games, where cosplay, aliases and old fandom histories hide more than one identity.

Book V · Planned

Monti Sibillini

Serena confronts the Benandanti congregation and the cost of its centuries-old failure to help Maddalena.

Final arc · Planned

Matera

Human and liminal danger converge across Calabria and Basilicata as Serena must decide whether she can keep walking alone.

Projects and possibilities

On the writing desk

Submitted short story · Dystopian speculative fiction

Two Lines

Currently a short story submitted to the RTÉ Short Story Competition, Two Lines has massive potential to grow into a fully fledged dystopian speculative-fiction novel.

Speculative science fiction · In development

The Mists of Memory

An X-Files-like mystery in which inherited memories and Arthurian echoes lead to a hidden population descended from the children of humans and the fairy folk. Over generations, their unusual inheritance has developed into mutations and specialised powers, and awakened an ancient conflict the modern world has forgotten.

Original concept · High-heat romantic comedy

The Birthday Trap

Meddling friends engineer a birthday sleepover for Maya and Alex, two spectacularly oblivious lifelong friends whose years of mutual pining may not survive pillow forts, Twister and Truth or Dare. A friends-to-lovers romcom planned to be extremely spicy.

Original concept · Commissaria Elena Rinaldi mystery

The Lost Suitcase

Potentially the first in a sharp, character-led mystery series following Rome police detective Commissaria Elena Rinaldi. A boy dies beneath a train at Valle Aurelia station, throwing the city into chaos. On the same platform, officers recover a suitcase packed with the hopes and plans of a girl named Nico, who has mysteriously disappeared. As Elena investigates the two cases, family secrets, identity and institutional pressure collide, and she discovers that appearances can be deceiving, while finding the truth is not always the same as delivering justice.

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