Sinopsis

"[A] richly detailed, expertly paced saga of the only female student attending a prestigious medical school in Italy...a truly captivating heroine, for then and for now." —Sally Cabot Gunning, author of The Widow's War and Painting the Light

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Girl in His Shadow comes a riveting historical fiction novel about the women in medicine who changed the world forever.

Women's work is a matter of life and death.

Nora Beady, the only female student at a prestigious medical school in Bologna, is a rarity. In the 19th century women are expected to remain at home and raise children, so her unconventional, indelicate ambitions to become a licensed surgeon offend the men around her.

Everything changes when she allies herself with Magdalena Morenco, the sole female doctor on-staff. Together the two women develop new techniques to improve a groundbreaking surgery: the Cesarean section. It's a...