Letters from Rome is a spiritual, erotic journey into those rarely explored dimensions of a love affair�the haunting feeling that you�ve met before, and the urgent need to reunite. Rose Coleman is a successful novelist, who can�t forget the affair of her life. With each reading of the letters she keeps locked in her file cabinet, she is transported back in time to 1974. It was the year she turned eighteen, and it was the year she met a man named Rome.
Rome Lewis is a veteran power forward with the Kentucky Colonels of the American basketball Association. Rumors begin to circulate that the powerhouse NBA is anxiously awaiting the demise of the upstart ABA so that they can have their pick of its scorching stable of stars. With competition like Dr. J, George Gervin, Artis Gilmore, and Moses Malone, Rome realizes that he is a poor candidate for transition to the league. With a wife and two small children to support, the last thing he needs is to get involved with a young girl named Rose.
But from the first moment of eye contact, a �knowing� passes between them that evolves into a timeless intimacy they choose not to question. Despite the guilt and secrecy of their infrequent meetings, their bond deepens until Rome�s professional world intrudes. His mid-season trade to the New York Nets franchise puts their love to the ultimate test�separation.
With the promise of daily letters, Rose remains in Louisville to care for her alcoholic father. To keep her spirits up, she spends time with her hard-partying friend Shelly, but slowly begins to realize the futility of loving a married man. As suddenly as it had begun, her all-consuming affair with Rome Lewis comes to its inevitable end.
But twenty years later, Rose still turns to Rome�s old letters each time �somebody else� fails to stir her emotions as he did. Unsure of the wisdom of her decision, she sets out on a double mission. After hiring someone to locate Rome Lewis, she begins work on a new historical novel. Her characters grow eerily familiar as they wake her from sleep, demanding that she write their story. And she realizes that they did not spring from her imagination, but from some unexplainable memories that live with blazing clarity in her mind. Unaware that her non-stop obsession with the novel is directly tied to her ongoing pursuit of Rome, she finds herself on two parallel journeys that unearth one unexpected answer.
