Bruno Blog

A book that marked my career as a literary agent was Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, which I had the opportunity to represent and sell the book to a wonderful publishing house, Ediciones Maeva. With this special book, many things happened: I had the chance to share a dinner with Frank, a lovely man, or the relationship that we built with Maite Cuadros, the publisher. A great experience, because we finally sold thousands of copies despite the hard beginning. For this reason, when I read THE PATHS OF LIGHT, my mind couldn’t help to establish a similarity with this great book. Coia Valls blushes when I tell her so, because we all know comparisons are detestable and Mc.Court is a referent, but Coia Valls is already a referent here in our country. From the beginning, the author had magic, audience and she goes further in every book she writes, and this is her most ambitious work. An extraordinary novel about a character that we all know his name but we are ignorant of his story. How is even possible that nobody wrote a book about Louis Braille until now? About the person who put light to those who lived in the shadows, the story of a revolution starring a child. The little of a family, the Braille, had an accident that made him lose his sight, but his tenacity will make him choose to pursue a path of adventure and discovery that will take him far beyond anything his contemporaries would have dared imagine.

The life of Louis Braille is an example of perseverance, about how the ingenuity can overcome the lack of resources in a difficult time for blind people, which used to be the homeless or the clowns of the town. The novel is settled in France, half of the 19th century, in a time of riots and hopes. Towns like Coupray, Llemotges and Vichy are the main locations of this story, together with the big city of Paris, that hosts the fight of this humble boy who discovered how to break the chains of the blind people.

This story leaves nobody indifferent: even an institution like ONCE (National Institution for Blind People in Spain) has been very grateful towards the book because until now, nobody was concerned about writing the life of Louis Braille. He was a kid with a desirable spirit but we cannot forget the people who surrounded him: his mother, his sister and above all, Margot, who were essential in this process of creation. A voice, a life, a story that is in the same league as many bestseller books. I truly believe that a publisher from every country will desire to give light to those who live in the shadows, and that many readers will support this story about a great person who worked discreetly. It was about time who someone gave him the protagonism that he deserves. Thanks, Coia, for this wonderful book who touches the deepest layer of our heart, without falling into the pretentious sentimentality.

I always thought that following your dreams is something that we should decide. It does not have to be something impossible to achieve, it is about chasing the things we want: it should be a challenge, an adventure.

At the agency, we receive a lot of emails from people that try to follow their dreams: publishing their book. From here, we always give an answer to these people instead of letting the silence talk. It is not easy because weekly, we receive a large amount of scripts but fortunately, I can count on Joan Bruna, who knows how to deal with this challenging department, and even though we would like to help more people, it is not always possible and to say it, to argue it and to make people understand is very difficult. Joan knows how to handle it and although it is highly likely that we’ve lost many good authors during the process, most of the people are satisfied with our treatment. Writing a book is not something that everybody can do, like the musician: it requires an ability and a training to acquire the necessary skills. We all know how to write, we learn that when we are little, but publishing a book requires more than that. Many people think that the training is a waste of time but one needs to learn to be a writer. You can own an innate talent like the athlete but without training, you cannot improve.

For this reason, we decided to join the literary advisory and writing school Historias donde vivo (Stories where I live) to help people to improve their writing skills. Our last creation is this magical notebook. I like to call it like that because it is the beginning of an adventure for those people who wish to face the challenge of writing. This notebook is much more than a travel diary or a compilation of notes. It is a methode. You have in your hands a tool that will allow you to successfully go through the first stage of a writer: the planification and the beginning of the process of writing. Twelve steps that you decide when, depending on how many hours you can devote yourself to the writing. You will learn in a systematic way because that’s how a novel is supposed to be written. You can take the notebook to the beach, to the mountain, and get inspired while you are sunbathing or having a coffee while it’s raining outside. You only need a pen and willingness to accept the challenge. Or it can also be a very special gift to someone who wants to write. The notebook is a tool, a starting point, that you can face in your own or accompanied by the online materials that the notebook includes, because all the writers complain about the same thing: writing is a solitary job. And that’s true and the reason why I encourage everyone to visit our online school so they can share both their positive and negative concerns. A magical notebook that I would have enjoyed as a Christmas present when I was little. So, do you know anyone who would enjoy this ride?

More about the notebook: https://historiasdondevivo.com/producto/planifica-tu-novela-en-doce-pasos/

Love is constantly present in our lives. I think of love in different ways. The first that comes to my mind is the love couple, but it is not necessarily the most important. When you are a mother, the love for your children is endless, as it is the love for your family, or the love for a friend, which sometimes is even more important because we choose our friends, so we shape this love the way we want, something that should also happen with our couple. However, love couple is also the most complicated but the one that inspires most of the films and books, to which I must confess that I am addicted to: I love reading a romantic novel a Sunday afternoon or watching the typical American film (yes, typical!) that tastes better with a bowl of popcorn.  Nevertheless, not all the love couples have a happy ending, as we can see in our friendship circles everyday because not everyone survives the eternal marriage: there are a lot of breakups and divorces, and we wonder why. In my opinion, I believe that we need to love ourselves first so we can love the others, and I think that many people in our society still need to learn this. For this reason, I enjoyed The temple of the heart by Lola Sorribes, her first novel after the success of De bien en mejor, also published by Urano.

This is a different novel, that surprises you, because even though it is a very inspirational novel, it is also a story that will help you to go through the pain caused by love and will guide you to find the real love. It includes 10 steps to rediscover love because, as Lola says, life surprises you and in the most unexpected moment, things fall apart. And then, when everything seems negative, you will come across extraordinary gifts and blessings.

When Patricia moves to Mexico with her husband, she cannot imagine that her wonderful life is about to collapse. Shortly after they arrive, her husband leaves her for another woman.Fury and heartbreak will kick off an everlasting adventure, both inner and exterior in the company of an unexpected guide. Along with chamanes, sacred mountains and intelligent life lessons, Patricia will start the journey toward the legendary Heart Temple, a journey that will guide her to the most sacred secret: the one hidden by her very soul.

Lola Sorribes, a writer that radiates light and positivity, writes this wonderful novel about healing, the inner search and the true love. An exciting and inspirational story with a powerful message for all the people who are willing to take the highway to their dreams, the path to the personal evolution, that are brave and are not afraid to look forward.

Cold has arrived, the day is shorter, smells like winter and everything looks more depressing. However, I like to think in all the positive things that are coming: these two cold and grey seasons do not bring only sadness. There are many good things, like enjoying a fire by the fireplace, having a hot chocolate with friends or just staying in bed with a book, because you feel like staying home rather than going out. So nothing is black or white but everything has its shades. However, I must confess that the autumn makes me sad. But something has arrived, something that has made me smile and cry with emotion: it has been the novel by Gabri Ródenas, who I have the pleasure to represent, called The old lady who crossed the world in a bicycle, published by Urano together with Rocio Carmona, a great publisher and writer.

You cannot imagine how special is this book, with a charming character, Ms. Maru, a 90 years old lady who is devoted to an orphanage in Oaxaca. At the moment she finds out she has a nephew, Ms. Maru takes her bike, her only possession, and decides to go to Veracruz to find him. A journey about the power of dreams, a journey that proves the power of the little things, a very real and humane journey that leaves you breathless in every page, a journey that invites you to discover the little treasures in life and to see that it really doesn’t matter if it’s winter or summer, if the day is short or long: what really matters is how your heart lives. Someone once told me: be careful how you look at the world, because the world will end up becoming what you see it to be. This is an undeniable truth and we should all follow Ms. Maru’s steps. You will not be able to put the book down and you will love to see the world through her eyes. 

At Frankfurt, we sold the rights of the book to a wonderful German publishing house, Thiele Verlag, and we hope that more publishers will be bringing this incredible story to their readers, because with books like this, the reader is happy and we make a better world thanks to words. Congratulations to Gabri for this great book which we hope to make travel in more languages.

Lisboa is one of these cities that I fell in love with. The streets, the people, the modernity mixed with the traditionality. There is no doubt that I went there with willingness, because I had a lot of friends from the publishing business with whom I had been working for years. They treated me so kindly that the good company and the beauty of the city, which I enjoyed together with two of my authors and the portuguese publishers, made this trip a wonderful experience that makes me feel nostalgy, serenity and happiness at the same time when I think of it.

Hotel Metropole by Sebastià Bennasar reminded me of this trip and now, I am totally impressed by the history of Hotel Metropole, which became a refugee for nazi spies, allies and Jewish people, who hoped to go on board and escape from Europe from the city of Portugal, neutral during the Second World War. All this story is based in 1989 when a journalist missed his plane and is forced to spend the New Year’s Eve in the Hotel Metropole, where he will meet Miss Fürts, who the same night but in 1942, she sailed for the United States with a list of nazi spies of utmost importance for the allies.  A novel based in two different times connected by the Hotel Metropole in Lisboa, the protagonist of this book that will discover the role of the CIA and of the women spies in the renowned Cold War.

A short novel of 218 pages that you will read at one sitting and that tells a perspective of the war unknown for many, because Lisboa is the protagonist, as it is the emblematic hotel and the role of women: three elements that had minor roles so far but now they gain importance thanks to Sebastià Bennasar’s perfect prose who repeats in one of his favorite setting, the portuguese city.