Jennifer Welch

Marta, a young politically savvy and well read Italian immigrant works in a local independent bookstore. She is passionate about books and distrustful of computers. Her love of reading has made her a fixture and trusted source of information to bookstore clients. After speaking with her, one of the bookstore regulars, Catherine, offers Marta an opportunity to work for her and make some extra money. Catherine is the proprietor of a small scale investigation agency and quickly takes Marta under her wing and molds her into a top performing asset. Each task assigned to Marta requires more and more trust on her part, until one day Catherine gives her a rather unusual assignment; very dangerous and bordering on covert.

Are all relationships based on lies? Jake Bianski runs a fish market in north Boston, surrounded by Italians. For years, he's carried a torch for Isabella, an ex-girlfriend now married with three children and no interest in Jake. Yet, he tells everyone she's his girlfriend, including Marisa, a veterinarian his employees set him up with at the Italian singles club. She's interested in him until he tells her about his girlfriend, then he's persistent in asking her to be his friend. As the friendship bumps along, Jake realizes that reality may be better than fantasy, but what if Isabella changes her mind about Jake, and what if it comes out that Marisa, like Jake, isn't Italian?