Stand Up

New York City, January 2026. Seventeen-year-old Giulia Ferraro has spent the last eleven years in a wheelchair after a horseback riding accident. One night, she stands up. She says the Virgin Mary appeared to her. The Vatican sends Father Damiano Valli, fifty-one years old, who has spent twenty years exposing false miracles. He has never authenticated a single one. He arrives in Little Italy with his notebook, his methods, and a faith worn as thin as an old coat. He looks for the flaw. He finds none. Meanwhile, Rebecca Crane, a reporter for The New York Times, conducts her own investigation. She doesn't believe in miracles. Yet what she discovers in the medical records defies everything she knows. Eight medical experts. Zero explanations. A teenage girl who never tries to convince anyone. And one first name no one understands—until the day everything finally makes sense.