Akron Public Library

"Carina DiGratia Shepard longs to leave behind the painful memories represented by the town of Crystal, Colorado, and start anew in the California vineyards of her youth. With Quillan bent on proving his devotion, Carina dares to open her heart to this rogue husband who has brought both pain and passion--and together they attempt to resurrect the tattered remains of their relationship and create a marriage where love truly reigns. Yet the journey...

A once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity takes shoe designer and businesswomen Valentine Roncalli from the winding streets of Greenwich Village to the sun-kissed cobblestones of Buenos Aires, where she finds a long-buried secret hidden deep within a family scandal. Once unearthed, the truth rocks the Roncallis and Valentine is determined to hold her family together as she longs to create one of her own.

In The Shoemaker's Wife Adriana Trigiani swept her readers across generations of an Italian family, from the Italian Alps at the turn of the twentieth century to the cobblestone streets of Little Italy. In The Supreme Macaroni Company, she weaves a heartbreaking story that begins on the eve of a wedding in New York's Greenwich Village, travels to New Orleans, and culminates in Tuscany. Family, work, romance, and the unexpected twists of life and fate...

About an Italian family living in Roseto, Pennsylvania. The eldest daughter Nella is ambitious and determined to make a life for herself far away from the rigors of farm and factory life. But then she meets and falls in love with a handsome carefree poet Renato Lanzara, the son of the town restaurateur. When he suddenly disappears without an explanation, rumors about a forced marriage to a girl in another town and criminal activity begin to circulate...

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 in passion, born in secret, and given up for adoption. Josephine spends the rest of her life searching for her lost child, keeping her secret even...

"A small, incongruous man receives an excruciating piece of news. His son has died in a POW camp in Korea. It is August 15, 1953, the day of a tumultuous street carnival in Elephant Park, an Italian immigrant enclave in Ohio. The man is Rocco LaGrassa, and his many years of dogged labor, paternal devotion, and steadfast Christian faith are about to come to a crashing end. He is the first of many characters we meet that day, each of whom will come...

The daughter of an Italian immigrant family in 1950 Greenwich Village, Lucia Sartori pursues a career in the fashion industry until she falls in love with a handsome stranger, who must win over her traditional family to marry her.

"Legendary mega-seller Jackie Collins chronicles passion and power in one of America's most glamorous families. A vicious hit. A vengeful enemy. A drug addled Colombian club owner. A sex crazed Italian family. And the ever powerful Lucky Santangelo has to deal with them all, while Max--her teenage daughter is becoming The "It" girl in Europe's modeling world. And her Kennedyesque son, Bobby, is being set up for a murder he didn't commit. But Lucky...

It is 1953 in the tight-knit Italian neighborhood in Wilmington, Delaware. Maddalena Grasso has lost her country, her family, and the man she loved by coming to America; her mercurial husband, Antonio, has lost his opportunity to realize the American Dream; their new friend, Guilio Fabbri, a shy accordion player, has lost his beloved parents. In the shadow of St. Anthony's Church, named for the patron saint of lost things, the prayers of these troubled...

Revenge, envy, and parent-child conflict mix with the rituals of Italian mob life in America. Includes fully restored film and the original and provocative Director's commentary.