Return to Yesterday

About the Book

Written in the lyrical quality of narrative verse, Return to Yesterday is the poignant story of two star-crossed lovers during the bitter struggle of hate versus right during World War II.

It also weaves in this story on the brutality of men at war, the heroes, the cowards and those battered by the incessant cruelty of warfare seeking to quench the fire in their loins in the arms of a womanany woman.

The heroine, is a young beautiful woman, Doreena, a fighter in the Italian underground. She is outraged with the enemy raping, plundering her town and killing her family and friends. She is determined to avenge the injustices of the invading army, the Nazi horde, and thus help save her town, her soul.

The American forces drive out the enemy and Doreena lays down her weapons when she meets an American Sergeant There is instant magic. Her radiant beauty, a beauty despite the coarseness of war and its savagery embracing the town and its peoples, besots him, a GI named JOE.

He has weathered years of battleAfrica, Sicily and now, Italy. Now, in the relative peaceful environs of little Piombino he seeks only rest and time to ponder the next assignment: the beaches of France.

The two, Doreena and Joe meet and a true love is born, full, rich and rhapsodic. But it is soon to be testedby members of Joes own the American Army, a company of soldiers fresh from the battlefields. Doreena, a very desirable young lady, is desperately coveted by these men, straight from terrible, bloody days on the linetired, hungry and thirsty for the scent, the touch of a woman. They somehow know of Doreena and demand that she satisfy their needs. They break into the towns City Hall where Joe and Doreena have taken up residence with the blessings of the Mayor.  Nothing seems to deter them, especially one, their unnominated leader,a short, repulsive angry man.

When the Mayor intercedes and finds a solution it does not suit this short one. Upon hearing that the Military Police have been called and are on their way, he refuses to budge. He stands his ground, defies Joes heroic efforts to save Doreena and fires his weapon with machine gun rapidity into the now barred apartment. His missiles hit Joe and Doreena, with almost fatal consequences. They are both hospitalized.

Joe recovers and is readied for France. But, sadly he learns that Doreenas injury is permanent: She has lost her sight; is blind, blinded by shards of the oaken door blown through by the short ones gun.  

Doreena whispers her good-bye when Joe proposes marriage immediately upon learning that she is with child, his.. She says No but leaves the door wide open with her avowed love.  The story ends with Joes promise to returnand the story begins with Joe returningreturning to yesterday. ..and his love.

The enormously moving love story, is based on a true incident during World War II.

About the Author

MATERIAL FOR COVER

Star-crossed lovers, an underground heroine, soldiers hungry for a woman’s love, “Return to Yesterday”—“Ritorno a Ieri”—depicts the story of two lovers entangled in the maelstrom of war. The two, an American GI,

who has weathered many battles since the memory of the sands of Africa. and a beauteous woman from the little Italian town of Piombino, who learned to survive and fight to save her mind, her family, her town and her soul, meet and fall in love—madly and magically.

But the rivers of hate and wanton desire continue to stream throughout her storm filled young life and her lover is now called upon to become her savior, but most of all the love of her life. Near tragedy befalls them both as he is about to be assigned to the beaches of France in a new invasion to rid Europe of the Nazi horde.  Both suffer an almost fatal fate when a company of American troops fresh from the battlefields intent on finding women, storm City Hall, where the two had made their temporary love nest.

It is a sad ending, yet it is a joyous one. She is filled with his child and promises to wait for h is return; and he vows—despite her very serious injury—vows to return…return to yesterday.