Dr. Ravell is a successful obstetrician in Boston at the turn of the twentieth century. Erika Myrick is developing her voice with the dream of an international opera career. Erika’s husband Peter, a successful textiles businessman, longs for a child. The couple’s difficulty with conceiving brings the three together in this compelling story of romantic obsession. The novel leads us from snowy Boston to a Caribbean plantation and to the beauty of Florence, Italy. We learn interesting tidbits of the history of fertility treatment.

McDonnell used her family history as inspiration for this novel. Her husband’s Grandfather was abandoned by his mother when she went to Italy to become an opera singer.