In 1950s Florence, there is an old saying: 'If you are born beautiful, you are not born poor.' The name Castellani ranks highly in the order of good-looking Florentine families. Lorenzo Castellani seems to have everything. Handsome, with a keen brain, he begins as a student of Renaissance art at the University of Florence, at a time when art history is still a subject for gentlemen, not pastry cooks such as his adoring family. But good looks and charms can sometimes turn to curses, as the Castellani family is soon to discover, when Lorenzo is forced to flee his beloved Florence for a very different life in Chicago. Moving between Florence and America, the novel follows the fortunes and misfortunes of three generations of the Castellani family, as each new generation brings with it new and passionate challenges, culminating in a sin so great that it is hard to see how the family will ever recover. An intriguing and reflective novel, an exploration of family loyalties and tensions, truth and lies, justice, and the conflicts and moral dilemmas at play behind an aesthetically-pleasing facade.