Maria Carozza should be happy living in the lovely Italian village of San Giulio. Ensconced in her mother’s kitchen, she bakes bread every morning, the way the Carozza women always have. But at sixteen, Maria is eager for adventure, so she escapes to Rome, where she has a passionate love affair.

One year later, she returns to San Giulio in disgrace—eight months pregnant, with the identity of the baby’s father a mystery. Hastily, shamefully, she is married off to a neighbor’s son. Maria soon escapes again, this time to England, where she searches once more for a new life for herself and her daughter, Chiara.

An irresistible saga of three very different generations of Italian women and the old kitchen in Campania that binds them.