"1950s Sardinia. When Tzia Bonaria adopts Maria, an unloved fourth child, she tries to shield the girl from the truth about her role as an accabadora, an angel of mercy who acts as a midwife to the dying. Moved by the pleas of a young man crippled in an accident, Bonaria breaks her golden rule of familial consent; and in the recriminations that follow, Maria rejects Tzia Bonaria and flees Sardinia for Turin. Adrift in the big city, she strives to find love and acceptance, but her efforts are overshadowed by the creeping knowledge of a debt unpaid and of a destiny that must one day be hers."--Publisher description.