"Curse Among the Palms" is a story of how the Jeresi and Fentimiglia families came together for the sake of love and marriage. Spanning decades, this is a saga beginning with young hopefuls migrating from the "old country," harboring their very hopes and dreams of a new, abundant life in America. They came with their strong wills, their hard-working ethics, and their fervent prayers for themselves and their unborn generations to create a better life with new opportunities.. These poor, but soulful people literally believed that the streets of America were lined with gold. This three part novel expresses, through decades, from the shattered post 1906 earth quaked docks and produce marts of San Francisco, where segregation and bigotry existed in its very underbelly; through the long, enduring nightmare of World War II; to the rock-n-rollin Fifties in the South Bay, where everyone seemed to get a piece of the pie; to the Silicon Valley boom, where everything seemed economically rosey; to the new millennium where the fickle mistress of heroine addiction strikes its ugly blow . Granddaughters of immigrants, Ava and Maria live their lives through a dark, hidden secret that plagued them both in ways they could have never imagined. Through their incredibly hardy wills and a zest for life in which they inherited from the "good stock" of their ancesters, they finally reach the other side of a journey bombarded by bigotry, hate, jealousy, and a deceit that floated through the palms when no one was looking. Through the strife of one heart break after another, their boundless will to find happiness brought them to a place of forgiveness, and ultimately the redemption that was always theirs. This isJosephine Teresi's first novel, but certainly not her last.