ROSANNA CHIOFALO

Food writer Claudia Lombardo has sampled exquisite dishes by the world s greatest chefs. But when she hears about the remarkable desserts that are created in a pastry shop operated out of a convent in the sleepy Italian hillside town of Santa Lucia del Mela, she wants to write a book featuring the sweets and the story behind their creator Sorella Agata. But the convent s most famous dessert a cassata cake is what really intrigues Claudia.Everyone who samples the cake agrees it is like none other they ve tasted. Yet no one can figure out what makes the cassata so incredibly delicious. Though Sorella Agata insists there is no secret ingredient, Claudia is determined to learn the truth behind the mysterious cake. As she samples each delectable treat marzipan fruit, rich cream puffs, and decadent cakes Sorella Agata relates the pastry shop s history and tells of the young woman, Rosalia, who inspired her.Kidnapped and separated from her family, Rosalia is subjected to a terrible ordeal until the nuns find her. As she heals, she learns the art of pastry making, and soon she even finds love with Antonio an apprentice in the pastry shop. But her heart still aches for the family she lost. And Rosalia knows she will not be whole again until she is reunited with them.

In the fields around Tuscany in summertime, sunflowers grow in profusionwave upon wave of gold and green standing tall against the Italian sky. But for Signora Maria Ferraro, the bright yellow blooms carry only bitter memories. Though she loved them as a child, sunflowers have come to represent the most painful episode of her life. Not even her cherished daughter, Anabella, knows what happened to her during World War II, when the Germans overran her hometown of Florence and Signora Ferraro fell in love with a Resistance fighter. In the aftermath of loss and grief she found salvation through an unlikely sourcecultivating roses on her farm in the Tuscan countryside. Now the blossoms symbolize everything that is both good and safe, and she nurtures them with as much care as she guards her past.