Author Josephine B. Pasquarello is pleased to honor her role model, Romania Pasquarello, in her book Love & Loyalty: An Immigrant Italian Mom Raising Her family Of Twelve In The Shadow Of A Mafia Crime. According to Pasquarello, “During my childhood, there was a show called Queen for a Day, which enshrined everyday women--mothers and wives--in their true splendor. I wish that my mother could have been the heroine of an episode because she is my inspiration and role model.”

Pasquarello has made her role model queen for a lifetime in the book. The family saga is a true story set in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s. It recounts the wisdom, tireless labor, compassion, and beauty of the clan’s matriarch after the murder of her husband.

While painting the many characters of her childhood neighborhood with clarity, passion, and humor, Pasquarello also imparts her mother’s wisdom. She talks about growing up Italian, where time around the table
and good Italian food is the solution to problems. She acknowledges her mother’s struggles as a single parent dealing with the sudden death of her spouse but also offers insightful answers. She communicates the
challenges for her heroine being both mother and father to twelve children and writes about how she overcomes them. She also shares how children process emotions differently than their role models.

Josephine B. Pasquarello is the tenth child of an immigrant Italian woman who is the subject of the book Love & Loyalty. She is a wife, mother and grandmother, living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. During her lifetime, she has worked in the restaurant business, owned a house cleaning service, and operated a successful store. Now retired, she devotes time to her family and traveling, working out, cooking the way she learned from her mother, and writing.