Tony Bass longs for an adventure, and on a sleepless night in 1997, fate is about to deliver. His random encounter with twin brothers at first seems unremarkable, since it takes more than period costumes to stand out in Austin, Texas. When pressed for an explanation, the twins make an astonishing confession. They have traveled across time from sixteenth-century Venice.

Once Tony learns their enchanted gondola goes both ways, he convinces his brother Frank to take a vacation to 1590. There, Tony meets the beautiful and enigmatic Isabella, the daughter of a Venetian senator. But what begins as an innocent flirtation ends in crisis when Isabella gives birth to twin sons. The boys must be separated and raised in different centuries.

Eighteen years later, an American teenager boards the gondola and returns to the past to find his brother. While a struggling young man in old-world Padua embraces an unexpected future, which might just include romance with a handsome stranger.

This sweeping saga of family and friendship spans four centuries, three love stories, two generations—with one unassuming but kick-ass gondola…