Timeless Bonds (The Sassy Ladies Series)

A Historical Fiction Novel of Revenge, Love, and Forgiveness

Two women. A century apart. One powerful lesson about the healing power of forgiveness.

In Timeless Bonds, Diana Rubino weaves an emotional story across the American West of the 1800s and New York City in 1984. When Angela Po's fiancé is murdered, her grief turns into a relentless quest for revenge. But a family journal belonging to her great-great-great aunt, Josephine Marcus Earp, wife of legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, reveals a remarkably similar struggle.

Through Josephine's experiences with frontier violence, personal loss, and an unexpected spiritual journey, Angela discovers that justice and healing may require more than holding on to the past.

Blending historical fiction, family secrets, organized crime, and a dual-timeline narrative, Timeless Bonds explores the lasting consequences of revenge and the courage it takes to forgive.

Discover Timeless Bonds by Diana Rubino and follow two unforgettable women on their journeys from vengeance toward forgiveness.

Excerpt from the book

Today, my birthday, was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Instead it ended in the horror I’d only heard about from my grandfather, who blew up a yacht full of bootlegging drug-pushing gangsters in the Hudson River fifty years ago. If revenge was best served up cold, he served it up subzero.

On this crisp evening, the love of my life Johnny Bonnanzio and I took a moonlit carriage ride through Central Park as an early spring breeze caressed us. After a lingering kiss he slipped a dazzling diamond solitaire on my finger and asked me to be his wife. “Oh, Johnny, of course I will!” I brushed away tears of happiness and rested my head on his chest. We later strolled through the park and sat on a bench to share an iconic New York treat, a giant pretzel.

As I broke off a piece for him, bushes rustled behind me and to the left. The chill of trouble made me freeze up. Dropping the pretzel, I turned as a man in the shadows pulled a gun from his waistband. “Yo, Bonnanzio!”

“Johnny, run!” I ducked under the bench as a bullet zinged over my head. Johnny stood and turned towards me. The shooter opened fire again and a gush of air shot from Johnny, hit four times in the chest. He staggered and collapsed. The gunman stood over him, fired two bullets into his head and took off.

I knelt beside him, cradling his head as blood soaked the ground, his eyes wide open in disbelief. “Help!” I screamed. “Police!”

Sirens wailed, people milled around and tried to pull me off him, the shooter’s profile seared into my brain.

Police arrived and asked me questions but I have no recollection of what they asked or what I answered.

The ride to the hospital in the back of an ambulance and the ER waiting room—what hospital, I didn’t know—went by in a blur. Bells shrilled. “Code 99” crackled over a loudspeaker. Two more policemen approached me and asked me more questions. I doubt I was coherent.

My parents and grandfather hovered over me. “We’re here, babe, we’re here,” my father soothed as I sobbed, numb with shock.

A doctor approached us, his scrubs splattered with Johnny’s blood. He looked directly into my eyes. “I’m sorry, Miss.”

I broke down in uncontrollable grief. “No, not Johnny! Why? Why?”

Much later, I found out why. After an endless, horrid night, the police called me in the morning to come down and answer the inevitable questions. A Detective Frank Rizzo showed me into his office and introduced me to his partner, Detective Elena Sanchez. They didn’t treat me as an accessory or a suspect—although, technically I was, but bystanders witnessed me almost shot, too. This was a “soft interview.” Everyone who knew Johnny was a potential suspect until ruled out and cleared. Of course they always started with those closest to the victim. Rizzo asked me to describe the killer.