Broomsticks

BROOMSTICKS Rome has always been a city where marble gods rule the streets and fountains flow with eternal waters. But in this Rome, the marvels are not just relics of the past. Here, magic is alive, unpredictable, and often as messy as a bowl of spaghetti. At the heart of this chaos stand two young warlocks. Marco Bellini, flamboyant, willful, and as explosive as fireworks. He believes magic is meant for dazzling crowds and impressing tourists. And Lorenzo Moretti, practical, severe, and stubbornly convinced that his own brand of controlled, respectable sorcery is far more appealing. Between them stands Tiana di Rossi: intelligent, elegant, and entirely unimpressed by magical theatrics. As the librarian of Santa Croce Monastery, she knows nonsense when it dances in front of her in the form of canaries, flying gondolas, and exploding pasta. Yet even she cannot ignore the strange charm . . . albeit buried under layers of rivalry and boyish ridiculousness that these two persistent warlocks bring to her orderly world. What follows is a tale of magical duels gone wrong, love gestures gone wrong, dinners gone wrong . . . in fact, nearly everything goes wrong. Except for the part where you, dear reader, get to sit back and enjoy the calamity without being turned into a frog.