Giulietta's Fountain
a novel
by
Dina Santoro
Thirty-year-old Julia Rossi is a perpetual cynic who believes that romance only resides in CinemaScope films. In a leap of faith, she leaves a lucrative job in New York’s fashion industry to finish her once-abandoned art history degree--in Italy. Her cathartic actions unsettle her parents, especially her mother, whose bitter disdain for her homeland goes back to the summer of 1982, when Julia’s brother was killed in an auto accident in Rome. Julia's then-boyfriend Andrea was the driver who survived but disappeared from her life.
With the hope of making peace with the past, and possibly resuming what may have been the love of her life, Julia follows her heart. But is forgiveness enough to mend ruined lives? Can it reclaim the happiness that one remembers? Will fate, the Italians’ beloved forza del destino, reunite her with Andrea or will it pull her family further apart?
Giulietta’s Fountain is a journey of lost dreams and self-discovery. It follows the transparent threads of time, from the sepia images of forgotten heroes to the blinding sunlight of Italian summers. It is a testimony of familial love, the fierce strength between mothers and daughters, and the tragedies that bind and separate us.
Dina Santoro was born in Italy and moved to the US with her family one frigid winter in the 1960s. She was almost eight, still remembers the navy blue velvet-trimmed double-breasted wool coat she wore on arrival, and the ice floes bobbing in New York Harbor.
Twelve years later, she graduated from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, and took her sketchbook and passport around the globe. Her adventures in fashion design included trips to India, where she was nearly thrown off a rickshaw, and less turbulent stops in Europe's fashion capitals. From her stacks of sketchbooks and memories came not only the styles that defined four decades but a cast of characters and imagination.
Finally retired from New York's fashion industry, Dina devotes her time to writing her next book.
Giulietta's Fountain is her first novel. Agents are welcome to contact her here.
