Trigiani, Adriana

When fourteen-year-old Viola is sent from her beloved Brooklyn to boarding school in Indiana for ninth grade, she overcomes her initial reservations as she makes friends with her roommates, goes on a real date, and uses the unsettling ghost she keeps seeing as the subject of a short film--her first.

In the rural town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney struggles to deal with change as her daughter enters her teen years, growing more and more strong-willed, and Ave Maria embarks on a journey into her past that she never thought she would take.

Nestled in the lush Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the town of Big Stone Gap has been home to Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney and her family for generations. She's been married to her beloved Jack for nearly twenty years, raised one child and buried another, and run a business that binds her community together, all while holding close her tight circle of family and friends. But with her daughter Etta, having flown the nest to Italy, Ave Maria has reached a turning point. When a friend's postcard arrives with the message "It's time to live your life for you, " Ave Maria realizes that she must go in search of brand new dreams. But before she can put her foot on the path, her life is turned upside down.

Describes the simple values of her grandmothers that were passed on to the author and depicts how their spiritual fortitude, entrepreneurial spirit, and resilience shaped her own life. Includes black-and-white photos.

Interior designer Bartolomeo di Crespi has picked every decoration in Our Lady of Fatima church in New Jersey, but remodeling the church requires more help, and more ideas. Bartolomeo clashes with another designer, an artist, and a stained-glass craftsman during the project, and their work impacts the community inside the church and out.

Thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli, faced with the seemingly impossible task of helping her family's Greenwich Village shoe business rebound from financial ruin, travels to Tuscany in search of techniques and materials which will help her rebuild the company, and while she is there, she learns a secret and has life-changing experiences.

The Angelini Shoe Company of Greenwich Village is near collapse. Determined to save her family's company, Valentine Roncalli accompanies her grandmother to Italy to learn new techniques and find unique materials. Then Valentine learns a family secret that turns her world upside down.

New York shoemaker Valentine Roncalli is at her grandmother's wedding in Tuscany when she learns that her brother has been made partner with her in the family business. Valentine escapes the drama by re-igniting her relationship with Gianluca. When Valentine takes a business trip to Buenos Aires, she discovers a family secret that threatens to destroy the Roncallis. Valentine struggles to keep the family together while debating her future with Gianluca.

Ave Maria Mulligan, a thirty-five-year-old spinster in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, is jolted out of her rut when her mother reveals a shocking secret, and things become even more exciting when Elizabeth Taylor announces plans to visit the sleepy town.

Eight years into her marriage, now a mother, Ave Maria Mulligan struggles with temptation in the form of a handsome stranger on vacation in Italy, suspecting that her husband is having an affair.