There's a certain street--via Saterna--in the middle of Milan that just doesn't show up on maps of the city. Orfi, a wildly successful young singer, lives there, and it's there that one night he sees his gorgeous girlfriend Eura disappear, "like a spirit," through a little door in the high wall that surrounds a mysterious mansion across the way. Where has Eura gone? Orfi will have to venture with his guitar across the borders of life and death to find out.

Featuring the Ashen Princess, the Line Inspector, trainloads of Devils, Trudy, Valentina, and...

In a tiny, ancient Italian hill town, where the land gives little and money and food are scarce, Don Francesco Falcone is a man to be reckoned with: rich, powerful, restless, intransigent. When he meets another force of nature, Concetta, a penniless but indestructible farmworker, the stage is set for the creation of an exceptional family: generations of strong, complicated boys and, especially, girls. The battles among them are many as they live through historical upheaval and private passions.

Their stories are told by Gioia, the last of the line, a woman of our times who fights...