Excerpt from Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A dreadful combination of symptoms, but Sophie did as she had been trained: she let nothing of her concern show on her face as she turned to offer water to the young man. Now that she could study them up close she saw the resemblance, and decided they were not a couple, but brother and sister.

"More." He reached for the glass, but she held it away.

"Slowly," she said. "In a minute you can have another sip. Otherwise you'll bring it all up and it will do you no good. Can you tell me your names?"

It had grown very warm in the dining hall, but his teeth began to chatter and his voice came rough and broken.

"Charles Belmain."

"And is this your—?"

"Sister. Catherine."

"Mademoiselle Belmain?"

"Madame Bellegarde. She is a—" His voice was very hoarse, and he paused to swallow. "A widow."

"I see. I am Dr. Savard."

She waited for him to take this in. After a long moment, he blinked and then nodded.

When she had given them each a few more sips of water, the cabin boy came up with her medical bag.

Sophie was aware, in some small part of her mind, that she was waking up. Things she hadn't thought about in many months came back in a great flood. The contents of her Gladstone bag, and the fact that she could find anything in it blindfolded; the way her mind observed and cataloged symptoms with little conscious thought. When she put her hand on Catherine Bellegarde's brow, she knew with certainty that if she had the means to measure her fever it would be at least 103 degrees.

It was as if she had put down her profession at some point since leaving home, and now picked it up as easily as a scarf once believed to be lost but then found, when all hope was lost, in the very drawer where it was meant to be.

The stethoscope told her what she anticipated: both of these young people were in poor condition, but the girl was far worse off. In addition to her headache, her heart was racing, her respiration was very fast and shallow, and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. She moaned and tried to turn, as if that would be enough to escape the pain.

Sophie palpated the lymph nodes under the jaw and folded the blanket away to examine her abdomen. It was then she realized that the girl—she could be no more than eighteen—was far gone with child.

Gently Sophie traced the taut line of her belly, cupped the curve of a skull, the bulge of a knee that suddenly flexed and withdrew, like a fish darting away to safer, deeper waters. The baby was alive, and no more than a month from term. She saw no evidence of contractions, but that might change at any moment; the terrible shock and stress of the shipwreck would be more than enough to send anyone into premature labor.

To Charles Belmain she said, "Has she been sick to her stomach?"

The question confused him, and Sophie repeated it in French.

"Yes," he said. "Most of us were, the last three days. But we had so little to eat. At sunrise we got a handful of rice and a single swallow of water and nothing more."

"Has she been disoriented, speaking of odd things?"

His expression cleared. "Yes. She's been calling me by her husband's name." Something odd in his expression, but this was not the time to pursue family politics.

"Complaints of pain?"

"Since earlier today, that too. A terrible headache, she says she can hardly stand it. She had some protection from the sun—a tray I held over her head—but still, the heat was too much."

All the symptoms of heatstroke, a disastrous diagnosis in the current situation. Sophie stood up and looked over the room until she found the captain, who was talking to the ship's physician.

To Charles Belmain she said, "Keep giving her sips of water, and take sips yourself. But just sips. I'll be right back."

On her way across the dining hall Sophie scanned the survivors where they lay, attended by crew members and a few intrepid passengers. They were all male and none seemed to be suffering from heatstroke. She was glad of it, because the one thing she must have would be in short supply.

Excerpted from Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.