[close] SACRED HEARTS is a new novel from bestselling author Sarah Dunant.

The year is 1570, and in the convent of Santa Caterina in the Italian city of Ferrara noble women find space to pursue their lives under Gods protection. But any community, however smoothly run, suffers tremors when it takes in someone by force. And the arrival of Santa Caterinas new novice sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the convent to its core.

The sixteen-year-old daughter of a noble family from Milan, Serafina is willful, emotional, sharp, and defiantyoung enough to have a life to look forward to and old enough to know when that life is being cut short. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girls cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal between the young rebel and the clever, scholarly nun, who is old enough to be Serafinas mother.

As Serafina rails against her in [close]