By the age of eight, Sandra Montanino lived in three different countries. These rich exposures immersed her into a wealth of cultures, languages, viewpoints, and provincial superstitions. Most fascinating and further igniting her imagination was her family’s tradition of sharing their own experiences and stories.

Sandra developed a true love of writing. Sadly, since all the old storytellers passed away, she realized she had an obligation to preserve their wisdom and treasures for her family’s future generation, but the book grew much bigger than she expected and it pleases her to share these gripping, funny, sad, and tender stories with everyone in The Weight of Salt wrapped in the ribbon of Sandra’s imagination.

Encouraged by the publication of her article in Ancestry Magazine, “The Original Recipe,” Sandra went on to receive numerous awards for her short stories from the League of Utah Writers and is the recipient of “The Outstanding Fiction Award” at the Southern California Writer’s Conference for The Weight of Salt, the first book in her historical fiction trilogy.

She is married to Gennaro Montanino, her high school sweetheart. They live in Utah between Utah Lake and the Wasatch Mountains. They have five children and fourteen grandchildren—soon to be sixteen.