The Need to Love

Three souls, one eternal city, and a love that fought to survive.

In the summer of 1987, young Martí Rocamora travels to Rome to write a novel about Beatrice Cenci, the Renaissance noblewoman who became a tragic symbol of feminine beauty, desire, and defiance against power.

While conducting his research, Martí meets a couple who introduce him to a passion without rules. Seduced by the eccentricity of his new friends and dazzled by the bohemian glamour of aristocratic parties, he gradually discovers his own desperate need to feel loved. As buried fears, secrets, and guilt begin to surface, he is forced to reconsider the journey he thought he was making. Will he be able to complete his literary project, or will he return home with his dreams shattered?

In this beautiful coming-of-age novel, Pablo Álvarez explores the hopes and desires of a generation destined for freedom, only to awaken almost overnight to the realization that time always leaves its scars, and that the past is never truly gone.