Roland Merullo

"Enlightenment meets On the Road in this witty, insightful novel." -The Boston Sunday Globe When his sister tricks him into taking her guru on a trip to their childhood home, Otto Ringling, a confirmed skeptic, is not amused. Six days on the road with an enigmatic holy man who answers every question with a riddle is not what he'd planned. But in an effort to westernize his passenger-and amuse himself-he decides to show the monk some "American...

Roland Merullo's playful, eloquent, and life-affirming novel finds the Pope and the Dalai Lama teaming up for an unsanctioned road trip through the Italian countryside to rediscover the everyday joys of life that can seem, even for the two holiest men in the world, unattainable. What happens when the Pope and the Dali Lama decide they need an undercover vacation? During a highly publicized official visit at the Vatican, the Pope suggests an adventure...

Manifesting intense religious episodes after losing first her grandmother and then her priest friend, Cynthia becomes convinced that God intends for her to become Catholicism's first female priest and pursues her belief all the way to the Vatican.

A novel about family, open-minded spirituality, and the American road, Lunch with Buddha accompanies the characters from Breakfast with Buddha as they move further along the path toward lasting peace of mind. Facing one of life's greatest emotional challenges, Otto Ringling takes comfort in a loving family and offbeat lessons from the eccentric spiritual teacher Volya Rinpoche. Funny at times, heartbreaking at others, Lunch with Buddha offers a fresh...

When 11-year-old Anthony Benedetto's parents die in an airplane crash, he is saved by the loving presence of his extended Italian family in this gracefully written coming-of-age novel. Set in the 1960s and moving from Anthony's parents' death through his experiences at an elite prep school, the novel is structured as a memoir and reads like one.

Dessert with Buddha takes the eccentric, sort-of-Buddhist monk, Volya Rinpoche, and his skeptical, middle-of-the-road brother-in-law, Otto Ringling, on another enlightening road trip filled with meals, humor, social commentary, and good times. On this journey, the couple ... heads down the Eastern Seaboard from Boston to points south. Along the way, they meet an array of intriguing characters (from a former NBA star to a Holocaust survivor, from an...

"Italy, 1943. Luca Benedetto has joined the partisans in their fight against the German troops ravaging the shores of his town on Lake Como. While risking his life to free his country, Luca is also struggling to protect Sarah, his Jewish lover who's hiding in a mountain cabin. As the violent Nazi occupation intensifies, Luca and Sarah fear for more than their own lives.In the heart of their village, their mothers have also found themselves vulnerable...

Former CIA agent Carolina Perez has spent the last five years working deep undercover for a very secret and very powerful organization. Their mission: to bring down Castro and free Cuba from the grip of his long and troubled regime. She believes in her heart that the cause she works for is just, even though it means lying to her wealthy and influential ex-pat uncle, Roberto Anzar. What she doesn' know is how deep the deception goes, and how intricate...