A simple but real love story with a happy ending

By Gina Buccella

In 1950s Venezuela, where progress barely peeked through dusty streets and migrant dreams, two destinies intersect to change everything.

Alpino, an Italian immigrant scarred by war and poverty, arrives in the country seeking opportunities… and unexpectedly finds a love that disarms him: Noemí, a sweet, hardworking young Venezuelan woman trapped by appearances, injustice, and the town's gossip.

What begins as an innocent romance is torn apart by a cruel trap, lies woven from envy and fear. Separated by a soul-wounding betrayal, they embark on different paths: she sunk in silence, he battling his own pain while working in a foreign land to gather the courage to return.

But fate—capricious, stubborn, tireless—has awaited them, a reunion filled with tension, tears, recriminations, and truths that finally come to light.

Amidst poignant scenes, confrontations, justice, and a love that refuses to die, this story rises as a hymn to hope, dignity, and forgiveness.

An epic, nostalgic, and profoundly human romance, where the characters battle their own inner demons and a world that often fails to grasp the purity of true love.

If you are moved by second chances, healing reunions, courageous endings, and emotionally charged narratives in Isabel Allende's style, this novel will captivate you from the very first page.

A story to feel, to cry over, and to remember.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gina Buccella
• Release date: Dec 7, 2025
• ISBN: 9798232056414

Book preview

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Chapter 1

An unexpected encounter

This love story, intertwined by time and guided by the invisible hand of fate, began back in the fifties, yes, in the middle of 1950. It was in a small town in the interior of Venezuela, where time seemed to pass slower, crawling like sap through the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree. The days were marked by the early morning crowing of roosters, a biological clock that needed no hands, and by the intoxicating aroma of freshly brewed coffee escaping through the windows, promising a new dawn.

It was a morning of clear skies, so blue that the eye hurt, when Alfredo, a young Italian immigrant, with a serene face, but with the imprint of life engraved in his eyes, and hands tanned by tireless work, arrived as usual to deliver the bread. Its destination was a modest winery with a faded blue façade, where the sun and time had erased part of its former splendor. The young baker carried on his shoulders sacks of flour that smelled of the promise of a new life and a basket of breads still warm, crisp as autumn leaves in the woods of Montebello, a distant memory, almost a sigh, that he still longed for in the depths of his soul.

As he opened the cellar door, the tinkling of the bell announced his arrival with a familiar melody, but it was the exchange of glances with Nereida that truly resonated in the air, an unexpected chord that stopped the breath of the universe. She, her eyes dark like freshly roasted coffee beans, deep and filled with a light Alfredo hadn't seen in years, dropped the packet of sugar she was wrapping, and the faint rumble seemed like the only sound in the world. And in that instant, which stretched into eternity, Alfredo knew that he had found something more than a destiny; He had found a debt paid off over time. It was as if the universe, after years of exile, solitude and silent battles, finally gave her a moment of beauty that she owed, a compensation for every hardship she had experienced. He was a man of fair and sincere words, with an intense gaze who, with the nostalgia of a distant Europe still in his soul and a smile that, in spite of everything, told stories of resistance and hope.

The morning sun filtered through the dusty lace curtains of the cellar, drawing golden patterns on the flour sacks and rum bottles, which glistened like liquid amber. The air smelled of cinnamon and old wood, of stories kept in the cracks, and the rhythmic creak of the countertops under the weight of the sacks of flour that the young baker unloaded, marked the slow pulse of that people who, oblivious to the rush of the world, were still dozing in the century XX. Italy was left behind, in the folds of his accent, in the melancholy of his gaze, and in the photograph of his mother that he always kept in his suitcase, a talisman against oblivion.

Their eyes met. And, for an instant, the world seemed to stop, as if an invisible director had paused the great film of life. The everyday sounds of the cellar faded, the movements of the tent slow, ethereal, as if time itself had surrendered to the magnitude of that encounter. It was just a second, a blink, but in the depth of their eyes they said everything, a silent conversation that transcended words and borders.

Nereida, feeling the heat rise up her cheeks like an uncontrollable tide, averted her gaze with a timidity that was almost an act of magic, and murmured, trying to hide the trembling of her voice, which looked like a leaf in the wind:

"Auntie... I'll come later.

And, without waiting for an answer, he hurried out, almost fleeing, his heart beating in his chest like a runaway drum, as if he wanted to escape and fly after that stranger who had just burst into his quiet existence.

Alfredo followed her with his eyes until the door closed, leaving behind him a void that had not existed a second before. He stood there, motionless, as if something inside him, something dormant from years of solitude, had just awakened with the force of a volcano.

Who is she? He asked in a thread of voice, almost a whisper, without taking his eyes off the door.

The stories that his grandfather had in Abruzzo were already resonating in his mind: about destinies that crossed in an instant, like lightning in the night, and men who crossed seas and mountains, who defied life and death, for a love that justified everything. He, who had survived war and poverty, who had braved loneliness and despair, felt for the first time that something called to him more strongly than hunger, than need, than survival itself.

Aunt Elisa, his father's sister, a large woman, blonde with sky blue eyes and an energetic voice that filled the space, let out a laugh full of mischief, as if she had witnessed a thousand love stories.

My niece, he replied proudly, with a smile that already knew everything.

What's his name? Tell me, who is it? Where do you live? He insisted, the questions running over his mouth, unable to hide the bewilderment and urgency that still overwhelmed him, as if time were going to slip away.

Don't worry, young man, Aunt Elisa