We women, you know, are pretty strong. This novel shows us again, the truth of our lives by telling us a story. A story of making the best of it, of finding grace, even within unchosen boundaries. Did you know that half of all noble women in 16th century Italy were forced into nunneries because their families could afford only one lavish dowery? In her author's notes, Sarah Dunant quotes one such woman, a nun form Santi Naborre e Felice convent in Bolgna , written to the pope: "Many of us are shut up against our will and deprived of all contact with the outside world. Living with such strictness and abandoned by everyone, we have only hell in this world and the next." Within the high walls of such a nunnery, a young girl with the voice of an angel arrives, determined to escape. How she interacts with the other women there, those charged with her care, those charged with helping her find acceptance and usefulness as a bride of Christ, those charged with healing her, and those charged with adminstering her less substantual but none the less useful dowry, is the bones of the story. What is escape really? What are the consequences? This is a story of love, the love of God and of life, and that deep unconquerable light inside us. I found it timeless and compelling.