Sofia, nine and Santino, twelve, befriend each other on the beach of Mondello, Sicily. She is the daughter of an ambitious US Senator. He is the son of a Mafia Capo.

Every year, Sofia's Italian family travels from Washington DC to spend their summer breaks at her Italian grandparents' beach house.

Her family's prejudice towards Santino's Mafia family abruptly separates them into completely different worlds.

Sofia is constantly challenged about life's happenings and slowly becomes a resilient young woman in the middle of a tumultuous relationship.

Santino is angry with life. His mom was accidentally poisoned and died when he was very young leaving Santino suffering from a grief that he endures for many years.

Fate brings them together again more than twenty years later, and the passion of their romance that develops makes it seem that they were destined to be together.

This novel is about the transformation that reveals what each are made of as they discover who they really are.