In this contemporary family saga, the Angelini Shoe Company, makers of custom wedding shoes since 1903, is one of the last family businesses in Greenwich Village. On the brink of financial ruin, it falls to thirty-three-year-old Valentine Roncalli, the talented but unsuspecting apprentice, to bring her family's old-world craftsmanship into the twenty-first century. Juggling a romantic relationship with dashing chef Roman Falconi, her duty to her family, and a design competition for a prestigious department store, Valentine accompanies her grandmother and master artisan Teodora to Italy in the hope of finding inspiration.

There, in Tuscany and on the Isle of Capri, she discovers her artistic voice and much more, turning her life around in ways she never expected.