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'1348. A bone-sculpted angel and the woman who wears it––heretic, Devil’s servant, saint.
'Midwife Héloïse has always known that her bastard status threatens her standing in the French village of Lucie-sur-Vionne. Yet her midwifery and healing skills have gained the people’s respect, and she has won the heart of the handsome Raoul Stonemason. The future looks hopeful. Until the Black Death sweeps into France.
'Terrified that Héloïse will bring the pestilence into their cottage, Raoul forbids her to treat its victims. Amidst the grief and hysteria, the villagers searching for a scapegoat, Héloïse must choose: preserve her marriage, or honour the oath she swore on her dead mother’s soul? And even as she places her faith in the protective powers of her angel talisman, she must prove she’s no Devil’s servant, her talisman no evil charm.
'Héloïse, with all her tragedies and triumphs, celebrates the birth of modern medicine, midwifery and thinking in late medieval times.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Epigraph:
Take thou this rose, O rose,
Since love's own flower it is,
And by that rose,
Thy lover captive is
Carmina Burana (possibly from Abelard's pen, expressing his love for Héloïse)
