In the world of intellectual properties and storytelling, most fictional universes begin on paper before expanding into other media. Rarely does the opposite happen.
Yet this is precisely the path followed by Italian author and worldbuilder Giorgio Onorato Aquilani, creator of The Kingdom of Santa Claus and the upcoming novel Back to Magic.
Located in Italy and visited each year by thousands of families from across Europe, The Kingdom of Santa Claus began as an immersive Christmas-themed destination. Over time, however, it gradually evolved beyond a seasonal attraction, becoming the foundation of a broader narrative world built around characters, symbols and shared rituals connected to the idea of wonder. From that living universe emerged the next step: storytelling.
Aquilani first began expanding the world through children’s publishing with the illustrated series Lucy the Star, before developing a larger narrative gateway into the universe with the novel Back to Magic, scheduled for publication in Italy in 2026 by Fabbri Editori (Mondadori Group).
Unlike traditional holiday stories, Back to Magic approaches Christmas not simply as a festive theme but as a symbolic language. At its core, the story explores a universal question: what happens in life when we slowly stop believing in wonder?
Blending everyday reality with elements of myth and imagination, the novel follows the journey of a protagonist who begins to rediscover a hidden world where the symbols of childhood may hold deeper meaning than adults tend to believe. This idea is encapsulated in a phrase that has become central to Aquilani’s creative vision: “Magic is a choice.”
What makes the project particularly distinctive from an IP perspective is its cross-generational narrative structure.
While Back to Magic speaks primarily to adult and family audiences, the broader universe includes stories designed for younger readers (such as the illustrated Lucy saga) alongside future developments in audiovisual storytelling, animation and immersive experiences.
Rather than a single book franchise, Aquilani describes the project as a narrative ecosystem, where different stories explore the same world from different stages of life: childhood, adulthood and the moment when the two reconnect.
This structure allows the universe to expand organically across multiple formats while remaining anchored to a central thematic core: the rediscovery of wonder in everyday life.
Today, as the project moves from publishing into a wider creative ecosystem, Back to Magic represents the gateway into a larger storytelling world with significant potential across books, animation, film and experiential entertainment.
In a media landscape increasingly driven by strong narrative worlds, Aquilani’s approach offers an unusual starting point: a mythology that first existed in reality before becoming fiction… and that now aims to travel in the opposite direction, expanding from story into a broader cultural universe.
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