After twenty years, Leo Pizzola has come back to his native village of Santo Fico, still single and still looking for a way to get rich. Sitting high above the sea in a remote part of Tuscany, the town is as poor as it was on the day Leo left. No tourist buses stop there. No guidebooks mention the Miracle and the Mystery of their blessed little church, which once held so much promise as a tourist attraction. Instead the broken fountain in the center of the small piazza is as dried up as the town's hopes.

Yet some things have changed. Of Leo's childhood companions, only one, little Guido, whom everyone calls "Topo," embraces him. His best friend Franco is long dead. And Marta, whose beauty has haunted his dreams, inexplicably refuses to talk to him at all. Worst of all, the town's kindly old priest, Father Elio, seems to have lost his faith. What Santo Fico needs is a miracle...a miracle to help them overcome the disaster threatening to destroy what little hope is left in this tiny village that the world has overlooked. Yes, a miracle would do the trick-even if Leo and Topo, scheming together, have to manufacture one themselves.

Now, as new loves and old passions sweep into Santo Fico, Leo's quixotic schemes to restore the spirit of the town and, not incidentally, fill his own pockets will unravel with unforeseen results. Long-kept secrets surface, baffling mysteries are resolved, and the overwhelming beauty of life itself emerges when wonders indeed begin to happen in this Italian town by the sea, including the greatest miracle of all…