The village of Supino looks as sleepy as the opening shot of an old black and white Fellini film. At the newspaper office, Bianca stumbles into a job meant for someone else and a new advice column, Ask Minerva, is born. Soon everyone is engaged in trying to discover the mystery columnist's identity as well as the identity of her correspondents.

Seven years have passed since Rosa's husband's disappearance and now he's been declared legally dead. And her secret lover (that all the villagers know about) wants to marry her. Bravo! Except Rosa is uncertain and when she's uncertain she tends to run away. That's why she's taken her son Carlito to Venice for a week. As Rosa's relationship unravels, Carlito does some unraveling of his own and inches closer to uncovering the mystery of his father's identity. Back in the village, Rosa's best friend Assunta is lonely. Perhaps that's why Assunta falls so quickly and naively for Enzo, the smooth-talking bottle cap salesman.

Every villager, from the hairdresser to the barman and each one in between, has an opinion on Bianca's column, Ask Minerva! The young hairdresser's assistant has trouble with her marriage to a man with a wandering eye, not to mention other body parts, and at the Kennedy Bar, the men gather to laugh over the columnist, Ask Minerva's advice until they begin to realize that it's their wives who are requesting the advice.

Maria Coletta McLean is the author of the best-selling memoir, My Father Came From Italy and the sequel Summers in Supino: Becoming Italian. She’s been featured in the National Post, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and USA Today. In 2002, she was awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal for her contribution to the Canadian literary landscape. Maria is a graduate of York University and University of Toronto: she lives in Toronto where she teaches English as a Second Language and Creative Writing at Seneca College. She maintains a home in the village of Supino.

Maria Coletta McLean's profile page

"Warm with wit and shining with insights into the human heart, this sunny tour of lives and loves in the Italian town of Supino is so captivating, you may never want to come home." —Barbara Kyle, author of the Thornleigh Saga novels