MAgistra

The year is 1182, and there’s only one place in Europe where a woman can study medicine: Salerno, Italy. This thriving, multicultural city is fiercely proud of its medical school, and it’s especially proud of its renowned matriarch, Trota, whose writings have spread across the continent. 

​

​Young scholar Eva de Ruggiero has just left the convent school she was raised in to pursue the opportunity of her dreams: apprenticing with Trota. She is determined to impress her new magistra, but Trota teaches her that true medicine isn’t found in the romance of books and theories; it lies in the daily, demanding work of examining patients, diagnosing illness, and preparing plant remedies. When the two women treat Ylaria, a Benedictine nun with a grave head injury, the healing enthralls the city. It draws Eva into a relationship with a male colleague, Urso, who has other theories about their patient’s health. When Ylaria is found dead at the city’s gate, Urso disappears, and Trota comes under scrutiny for the crime. In order to protect the people she loves, Eva must use all of her medical expertise to find out what happened, even if it reveals secrets that will tear her world apart.