In this stunning debut novel, a young woman tells the story behind two elderly sisters' estrangement, unraveling family secrets stretching back a century and across the Atlantic to early 20th century Italy. For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella's childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents--moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella's...

An Italian immigrant watches her six children grow up while she searches for her seventh, the product of a love affair who was given up for adoption. In turn-of-the-century Italy, fourteen-year-old Josephine, sheltered and naive, is forced into an arranged marriage to a man she doesn't know or love who is about to depart for America, where she later joins him. Bound by tradition, Josephine gives birth to seven children. The last, Valentina, is conceived...

Batholomeo di Crespi, a bachelor decorator in the upscale New Jersey town of Our Lady of Fatima, circa 1970. His exquisite taste in fabrics and decor have made B well respected in OLOF; he's decorated all the important houses, from his divorced older sister's Georgian manor to Aurelia Mandelbaum's mansion. Aurelia's myopic daughter Capri, still living at home at age 40, has been B's unofficial fiancee for 20 years, but this was their mothers' idea,...

#1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Book Club selection

"Thoughtful . . . heart-wrenching . . . . An exercise in soul-baring storytelling—with the soul belonging to 20th-century America itself. It's hard to read and to stop reading, and impossible to forget." — USA Today

Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old housepainter living in Three Rivers, Connecticut,

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Two star-crossed lovers--Enza and Ciro--meet and separate, until, finally, the power of their love changes both of their lives forever. Set during the years preceding and during World War I.

Two fourteen-year-old girls, sewing machine operators at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, are caught in the famous Triangle fire of 1911.

It is 1963 in New York, and things have never been better for the Corleones. One problem remains however - Michael has sworn revenge upon the traitorous former Corleone capo, Nick Geraci. Up until now Geraci has evaded him. And to add to this Jimmy Shea, president of the United States and close friend of the Corleone's, is assassinated.

Michael Corleone, youngest son of crime boss Vito Corleone and reigning Don of the Corleone Family, returns from exile in Sicily intending to take over the family organization; however, he must first face his main adversary, Nick Geraci, who worked as a Corleone street enforcer and is every bit as deadly as Michael.

"When midwife Sarah and detective Frank Malloy's friend and new partner Gino Donatelli is accused of murder, he and Sarah must catch the real killer to keep him alive. . . . A young woman is missing in the upper Manhattan neighborhood called Italian Harlem, and everyone knows who's responsible--the Black Hand, a notorious group known for terrorizing their own community with violence and kidnappings. Gino and Frank set out to learn more about the disreputable...

A young man and his Italian teacher form an unlikely friendship in this novel of hope, heartbreak and the Italian-American experience.
Fresh out of college, Carter Quinn has returned to his home in North Providence, Rhode Island, unsure of just about everything except his plans to go to Italy and pursue the woman of his dreams. To do that, he needs to learn to speak Italian, and there's only one man who can teach him—if Carter

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