Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant

What I like about Sarah Dunant is her research. This historical novel is set in Ferrara in the 1600s in a Benedictine convent. At the time the Council of Trent had passed stringent new rules governing life in convents, banning the small luxuries of life such as music (other than the organ), books, visits from families and the like. According to Dunant about half of all noble women ended up in convents so they weren’t really vocational places in the way that they are today. Families who couldn’t afford large dowries to marry their daughters could put together the smaller dowries to place the left over women in the convents – they were more communities of women who worked and amused themselves in a holy sort of way but possibly no holier than very devout married women outside the convent. This story is about an unwilling conscript who is trying everything she can to be reunited with her lover outside. The major character though is Suora Zuana, daughter of a doctor who has ended up in the convent on his death but acts as the official medicine woman in the place. She ends up deeply involved with the girl and her fate. This is a terrific historical novel, one that gives you some insight into what the politics of these places must have been like, and the role of women at that time. 3 1/3 stars