Rebecca Branch

The Summer of '71 Rebecca Branch

You're in a foreign country wearing a strapless, full length metallic dress that looks like paint and four inch heels on a cobblestoned street. Your eyes are painted black, rhinestones pasted to your lids. You have no money, no plans, and have attached yourself to a rocker who intends to make you his pleasure in exchange for a bed and a semblance of security. He gets arrested and now you're alone on the street, cannot retrieve your bags, know no one else, and don't speak Italian. The predators start to circle and you're a piece of fresh meat. He's sitting by the fountain, playing his guitar. A young but brilliant American who spends each summer in the rich medieval villa of his aristocratic mother. He stands up for you and fights off the carnivorous Italian men. Summer of '71 is a story of hopelessness, resurrection, friendship, infatuation and love. Set against a backdrop of the ancient city of Rome, it's ruins, monuments, museums and café society, it is the whirlwind romance of a young prodigy, handsome, entitled, brilliant and alone and a down on her luck fashion model, abused, mistreated and desperate for salvation. The book which launched the Time Keepers Series, this story follows the lives of two fascinating people who find happiness and enlightenment in one another. It is always romantic, sometimes erotic, and written with the loving hand of an art historian, sharing the wonders of the ancient city in the turbulent times of the social revolution.