Gabriel and the Swallows

Loner farm boy Gabriel Laurentis has secrets of his own. In his daily life, he's the ugly, badly bullied son of peasant winemakers, with no friends and a disabled mother he's ashamed of. At night, however, when Gabriel descends into his dream world; a grandiose, gorgeous existence that is the opposite of his waking life, it becomes so vivid he's beginning to confuse the two.Gabriel's life is changed forever one fateful night when he rescues a wounded creature from the shotgun of his family's enemy: the dangerous Gallo, owner of the region's largest vineyard, and longtime enemy of his family. At the discovery of what the creature really is - a miraculous little girl with swallow's wings, an unbreakable bond forms between the children.Aided by the mysterious and beautiful foreigner Orlando Khan, Gabriel struggles to protect the girl from the world, but questions haunt him: is the foundling really who she says she is? Who is the Dark One that lives in the medieval tunnels beneath their city, or is he just a figment of Gabriel's imagination? And is the girl's condition merely a mutation of nature, or something much more sinister?Wrestling with manhood, Gabriel encounters mysteries as old as blood and bone, of ancient rites and foreign lands, and must make a deadly decision that changes the course of life as he knows...if he can tell which reality he's in, that is. A coming of age story, GABRIEL AND THE SWALLOWS weaves a sinister tale about the nature of destiny, the power of dreams, and the sacrifice of real love.