15th anniversary marked with release of new edition Sept 29th, 2009....

            The book tells the horrifying story of the shooting, as four-year-old Eleanor lay asleep next to Nicholas, the failed efforts to save him and the emotion that engulfed Italy when the decision to donate became known. The President and Prime Minister of Italy asked to see the Greens privately and talked to them like friends of the family instead of leaders of a nation.

The book shows them going home to their beautiful village of Bodega Bay on the Northern California coast and, in a wrenching ceremony, burying Nicholas in a simple country churchyard, then picking up the threads in a house that suddenly seemed empty.

The book goes on location for the making of “Nicholas’ Gift,” a CBS movie of the week, for which  Jamie Lee Curtis was nominated for an Emmy. It details the arrest of the two suspects and the long-drawn-out murder trial. It describes how Pope John Paul II had a bell made in the papal foundry and sent to the memorial tower that was built in Bodega Bay. Many readers have said the chapter titled “Life without Nicholas” has touched their own deepest emotions.

In the past 15 years, Reg and his wife Maggie have tried in as many ways as they can devise to use their story to draw attention to what is at stake when a family is faced with the decision of whether or not to donate.

<>The book shows them visiting hospitals where, for the parents of some tiny children, the only hope is a donation from other parents devastated by the loss of their own child, producing ground-breaking documentary films that make converts wherever they are shown, meeting the seven recipients, dedicating streets, schools and parks named for Nicholas and answering every one of the emails and letters that still come to them in a steady stream. The story is inspirational but through it all comes a sense of an irreparable loss that never goes away.

    “The Nicholas Effect” is available online at www.authorhouse.com for $9.90 plus shipping and handling or through online booksellers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble etc.)





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