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

In the morning she sought out the ship's doctor for a consultation. Dr. Conway listened to the case history and her poor prognosis, stroking his beard and shaking his head.

"Have you told the brother?"

"No," Sophie said. "But I will have to speak of it if there's no improvement by this evening."

"If you would like me to examine her, just send word with one of the cabin boys." He paused. "I'm very glad for her sake that you happened to be on board. I've had my hands full with the rest of the survivors."

"Deaths?"

He nodded. "One. Exposure and a weak heart. Three amputations, as well. But it's amazing that they survived, any of them."

Sophie wanted to get back to her patient, but her curiosity about the wreck made her pause. "What exactly happened?"

He puffed out his cheeks and let his breath go with a pop. "According to the quartermaster, they got caught up in a nor'easter. Treacherous. A swell like a mountain—so he said, and he's twenty years a sailor—struck her starboard and took the whole ship over. She might have righted herself, but the hold was full of cattle and every one of them was thrown to the port side when the swell hit. So that's how they stayed, the cattle thrashing and bawling. The captain put half the crew on the pumps and set the other half to dragging the cattle out of the hold, one by one, up a deck slanted like a roof, you have to imagine it, and then forcing them overboard. One of the sailors got hooked on a horn that tore his arm up. I had to amputate at the elbow.

"Took a day and a night to empty the hold, and the whole time she was sinking, inch by inch. Then they waited another two days to be rescued, in blinding sun. You saw how much was left. The miracle is that we came across them when we did."

Sophie went back to her cabin thinking of Catherine Bellegarde, who had such a short time left to live. In these few hours of their acquaintance, the young woman had reminded Sophie that she had a profession and—though she disliked the word—what amounted to a calling. She could no more pretend not to be a doctor than she could convince herself that she wasn't female. This thought was in her mind still when she opened the door and saw Charles Belmain bent over his sister, trying to hold her down while she convulsed. Pip put back his head and howled.

Elise sent the cabin boy running. Dr. Conroy, no longer young and made in the shape of a barrel, was breathing hard when he reached the cabin.

Sophie said, "Sudden-onset cortical blindness and there's pitting edema on her face and chest. No avoiding the diagnosis anymore."

He bowed his head. "Eclampsia."

"Yes. But the baby is still alive, and I might be able to save it."

He was a physician and understood what she hadn't said out loud: Catherine Bellegarde was as good as gone. Eclampsia was always fatal, even in the most controlled situation and best-equipped hospital surrounded by specialists; there was nothing to be done for her. It was unlikely that the child would live, but there was at least a small chance.

Charles Belmain was standing near the door, his color very bad. Sophie walked to him, took him by the arm, and forced him to sit down before he fainted.

"Mr. Belmain. Your sister has eclampsia, I'm very sorry to say. There's nothing we can do for her, but I will try my best to save her child."

When he glanced up Sophie had the sense that he hadn't really heard her.

"Let me do what I can to save her child," Sophie repeated.

Belmain blinked and looked down at his feet. When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. "You said she had coup de chaleur. Heatstroke."

"She did have heatstroke, but it was masking another problem. Eclampsia."

"What is it?"

"Éclampsie. Probablement à la suite de l'hypertension artérielle. Arterial blood pressure has something to do with it, but I can't tell you any more than that. As far as medical science has come, the reason some women develop these symptoms are not understood."

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.