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    The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
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    The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
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    The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel

    Written by Regina O'Melveny

    Narrated by Katherine Kellgren

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Dr. Gabriella Mondini, a strong-willed, young Venetian woman, has followed her father in the path of medicine. She possesses a singleminded passion for the art of physick, even though, in 1590, the male-dominated establishment is reluctant to accept a woman doctor. So when her father disappears on a mysterious journey, Gabriella's own status in the Venetian medical society is threatened. Her father has left clues--beautiful, thoughtful, sometimes torrid, and often enigmatic letters from his travels as he researches his vast encyclopedia, The Book of Diseases.

    After ten years of missing his kindness, insight, and guidance, Gabriella decides to set off on a quest to find him--a daunting journey that will take her through great university cities, centers of medicine, and remote villages across Europe. Despite setbacks, wary strangers, and the menaces of the road, the young doctor bravely follows the clues to her lost father, all while taking notes on maladies and treating the ill to supplement her own work.

    Gorgeous and brilliantly written, and filled with details about science, medicine, food, and madness, THE BOOK OF MADNESS AND CURES is an unforgettable debut.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 10, 2012
    ISBN9781611136180
    Unavailable
    The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel
    Author

    Regina O'Melveny

    REGINA O'MELVENY is a writer and assemblage artist whose award-winning poetry and prose can be found in various literary magazines including The Bellingham Review, rattapallax, Barrow Street, and The Sun. Her long poem, Fireflies, the Conflux Press Poetry Award winner, was issued as an artist's book designed by Tania Baban. She has published three chapbooks, New and A Secret from Conflux Press, and most recently, other gods an award-winning collection from the Munster International Poetry Centre in Ireland. Her full-length manuscript, Blue Wolves, won the Bright Hill Press poetry book award. Little, Brown and Company published her novel, The Book of Madness and Cures, listed as one of six best historical novels of the year 2012 by NPR. She has taught writing at Marymount College, the Palos Verdes Art Center and the South Coast Botanic Gardens. Regina lives with her husband in the fragrant sage-scrub hills of Rancho Palos Verdes.

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    Reviews for The Book of Madness and Cures

    3/5

    116 ratings22 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed the plot in this book. Very different and because it is set back in time I enjoyed it even more.
    • 3/5
      If you judge a book by its cover, this would be a 5 star book. Unfortunately, Regina O'Melveny doesn't quite live up to the artistry that jacket designer Keith Hayes evokes. Hayes lures the reader in with the lovely Giovanna Tornabuoni by Domenico Ghirlandio (1489-1490)surrounded by some mixed media additions. And it worked. I am in the text and underwhelmed. But still looking at the cover longingly.
    • 5/5
      THE BOOK OF MADNESS AND CURES, by Regina O'MelvenyThis book is an excellent example of the reason why book lovers read. Because every once in a while we get to read a book this good.If I didn't know better I'd almost believe Ms. O'Melveny discovered a previously unpublished diary written by a woman in 1500s Venice who trained with her father as a physician. This is the story of her journey to find her father who left Venice to seek more information to include in the book he is writing (with his daughter's assistance) called "The Book of Madness and Cures" detailing the understanding of mental illness, or "madness" as it was conceived at the time.As her father traveled through Europe and England, meeting with other Doctors to gather information for his book, he sent letters back home, sharing what he learns and what he thinks about the information. His letters become more and more disturbing and distressing in tone, and come less and less frequently.After ten years, the daughter decides she must follow her father and find him, leaving Venice with two servants, using her father's letters as a guide. The journey is fascinating as are the people she meets. At that time, in some places, if it was discovered she practiced "medicine" especially using any herbs or plants or their derivatives, she would be accused of witchcraft and executed, so she must hide her training and knowledge, while seeking out and engaging doctors her father mentioned in his letters.I will not spoil the book by continuing with the story, but it is so very, very worth reading to find out.Ms. O'Melveny's voice is rich, authentic, poignant and moving. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I am quite sure it is one I will remember for many years.Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in return for a review and will be posting it on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads and Library Thing and subsequently on a blog of reviews I am preparing.
    • 3/5
      Another novel about a woman medical practitioner who must fight the male hierarchy, seemingly wherever she goes in 16th century Europe. Gabriella Mondini sets off to find her missing doctor father, and her quest takes her to Germany, Amsterdam, Edinborough, Spain, and finally Morocco. Along the way, accompanied by loyal servants, she finds danger, betrayal, romance, and continued frustration, as she traces her father's journey geographically and physically.
    • 2/5
      Gabriella is a female physician, something unheard of in 16th century Venice. After receiving a letter from her father, who left ten years ago on a mission to discover the secrets of medicine, she sets out to find him. I found this book to be extremely slow. Gabriella is constantly reminiscing about the past, which makes it hard to be interested in her current plight. Although the book was eloquently written, I found it to be more fluff than substance. Overall, this is not a historical novel I would recommend.
    • 3/5
      Gabriella Mondini is a woman doctor in Venice at the end of the 16th century. Estranged from her mother, she has always looked to her father, likewise a doctor, for advice and guidance until he left his family behind ten years previously to travel and complete his magnum opus, The Book of Diseases. Unsettled by the latest arrival of one of his letters, the only one for nearly a year, she sets out to find him, following the trail of (infrequent) messages which he sent from places across Europe.As some other reviewers have already remarked upon, this book promised much but ultimately failed to deliver. I didn't think it was quite as bad as some reviews suggest but neither is it very good. Written with an almost exclusively female readership in mind, the author paints a vivid, colourful picture of the Renaissance, with prose that's good enough to eat at times. Yet in her attempt to create these sumptuous images, she often loses herself in the descriptions and forgets to move on the plot, and her characters, especially Gabriella, for the most part remain unaccountably pale. I thought that the little passages Gabriella writes for her own book offer the reader a fascinating glimpse into the Renaissance mind set, but are, after all, inconsequential and only delay the storyline. There are enormous gaps in the narration, where it jumps from one place to another without explanation or even reference (worst offenders: the crossing of the Dolomites and the leg between Cockermouth in the north of England to Montpellier in the south of France); it appears as if the plot (and with it the journey) has suddenly fast-forwarded several hundred miles and is extremely irritating. The chemistry between Gabriella and her supposed love interest is virtually non-existent and not helped by the fact that their names are barely mentioned on the same page together and that Gabriella has the infuriating habit of comparing all men to her father. For the last 100 pages I had to resist the temptation to skip read ahead and only just about managed. The moving reunion with her father made up for some of the lost ground but not enough to redeem the book. Not for me, I'm afraid.(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.
    • 3/5
      A unique romp around Europe in the renaissance era. Delivered in a first person narrative The Book of Madness and Cures is a Renaissance tale of the life of Dr. Gabriella Mondini a women physician living in the 16th century in Italy. Gabriella practices medicine during a time when women holding this title were considered to be witches or sorcerers and when persecution was high. However Gabriella lives in Venice which is a little more advanced in their belief systems. Gabriella decided to leave her comfortable live to travel across Europe in search of her father who seems to have disappeared. With nothing left of her father but old letters he had sent her Gabriella decides to leave her disapproving mother behind in search of her father. With some donkeys and her servants Gabriella heads out on a long journey. Along the way her planned stops consist of her fathers previous colleagues where at times Gabriella learns some disturbing things about her father. I found their travels interesting and uneventful. However I felt this book was lacking something when it came to the characters themselves. Although I enjoyed them, at times they were quite odd including Gabriella herself. I can imagine this is to be expected for this era and what the characters lacked the author made up for with historical detail. This book was great in the historical fiction category. However I feel it would work best for those who are more into the renaissance era overall as sometimes I found it hard to relate to the peculiar behavior and prose used by the author.
    • 3/5
      I really wish I could say that I liked this more and in parts I did. Gabriella was an interesting character and the book involves a search for her father, travels throughout many different regions, medicinal herbs, a family history of madness and the practice of a woman doctor. Also it takes place in the 16th century and starts out in Venice. Yet parts of it were stagnant, parts were brilliant, and parts were just so so. Still the historical data was fascinating and I did like Gabriela herself and I did love the title so an okay read for me. I just wish it had been more consistent throughout.
    • 2/5
      First I won this book through GoodReads. Set in 16th century Venice it follows the life of Gabriella on a quest to find her father who left to travel and finish his chronology of diseases and cures. She follows a course led by letters from her father and is helped along by her two servants Lorenzo and Olimino. They helped along by many of her fathers friends and other acquaintances along their journey. Gabriella brings along her copy of the book she and her father had worked on before he set out on his journey.

      The book is detailed in 16th century life and for the life of a woman during this time period. The meat of the story does not occur until 2/3 into the book so you do need a little patience. I was sad for the loss of Lorenzo on their journey. I felt Gabriella was a bit like Don Quioxte in her push to find her father crossing through many countries and oceans on a quest that seemed unlikely to succeed.

    • 3/5
      I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

      I enjoyed reading this book but it felt like something was missing, at least to me. I kept waiting for more.
    • 2/5
      I picked this up on a whim because of the title and the setting (16th century Italy), but it did not end up being all that great. It is the story of a woman doctor journeying around Europe in search of her father, who disappeared some years before. The descriptions of contemporary medical case studies and treatments were fascinating, but the story itself left a bit to be desired. It's mostly about her somewhat aimless wanderings, some lukewarm interactions with locals, and ultimately a pretty disappointing climax. It passed the time, but I wouldn't recommend it.
    • 2/5
      First, to comply with the terms and conditions that I'm sure no one ever reads, I hereby disclose in this, my review, that I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

      Second, I will warn you now. There are spoilers. Do not read the last paragraph if you intend to read the book.

      Now that THAT is out of the way, I will begin by saying that I was, sadly, underwhelmed with this book. I was expecting more; I can't exactly pinpoint how, exactly. The description, or rather summary hooked me, to say the least and I was VERY excited when I had found out that I'd won it. I ran to the mailbox each day after work, waiting for the book to come in. I was so anxious to read it, hoping it would live up to the description, title and cover art.

      I loved the characters. Lorenzo and Gabi were probably my two favorites. Their personalities and their overall development as characters pleased me a great deal. Olmina was a wonderful character as well, since I'm pretty sure everyone knows someone like her: an older, stubborn woman who tends to be quite motherly, although either has no children of her own or they've grown and moved away, practical to a fault, mildly superstitious, and, to top it all off, more than she seems. She was incredibly relatable and, I believe, she was an excellent addition to to book to balance out the personalities in the traveling trio.

      The course of the story is where I was disappointed. I enjoyed the author including the parts of "The Book of Diseases" that Gabriella was writing through out the journey, but I feel as though the journey its self was monotonous, repetitive, and vague. Every town, though in different areas of Europe, was the same experience: Looking for information about her father and not finding it. Each gentleman scholar she stayed with having something to do with her romantic life in some way, whether they themselves were interested, or one of their students etc. Pressing on, fleeing, followed or even accompanied by some sort of tragedy. Every. Single. Town.

      I was bothered that none of the doctors she stayed with seemed to share the same feelings as the council when it came to a woman practicing medicine. It seems odd that it would only be in Venice, her home town, the very place where she practiced her art alongside her father (when he was in the picture), where Gabi would find those opposed to her occupation strictly because she was a woman. These men who helped her along her journey, although they knew her father and his reputation well, didn't really know much about HER practice, from what I was able to gather. Why would they treat her with the same respect they treated her father when, in their eyes, she was yet unproven in the art of medicine and a woman to boot? It's the late 1500's for goodness sake!

      Finally a few other minor details bothered me towards the end of the story. First of all, she gets pregnant. Although I know she wasn't overly religious, and sex before marriage isn't impossible, even back then, it WAS still frowned upon, regardless of age or station. I just didn't feel as though Gabi would do that. Next, I was bothered by everything with her father. I don't want to go into details because I'm pretty sure I already ruined this for people, but I'll just say that the author left a lot of questions unanswered in that regard. Finally, where did they get the name for the child? I mean seriously, I know it's not a HUGE point and not really worth making a stink over, but you would think she'd do something with her father's name. Just saying.
    • 3/5
      Venice in 1590 was one of the more forward thinking cultures of Europe. Even so, Gabriella Mondini had to hide her ability as a physician because of her gender. Her father taught her the art of physick and she had looked forward to practicing with him. When he decided to go wandering throughout Europe to find more cures for his Book of Physick she was devastated to be left behind with her mother. As his correspondence became more and more sporadic she made the decision to follow his path and find him. Not quite as simple as it sounds. A woman travelling alone with her staff of two attracts all kinds of unwanted attention, and a woman physician could be misconstrued as a witch. All making for an interesting and perilous quest.

      I enjoyed this book for several reasons; the description of life as a “liberated” woman in 16th century Europe, Gabriella’s quest and the descriptions of the various countries she travelled through and the description of common cures, uncommon ailments and everyday life. This book would definitely appeal to fans of Arrianna Franklin’ Mistress in the Art of Death books.
    • 3/5
      I received The Book of Madness and Cures as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

      I read this book (and wrote its review) quite some time ago; however, somehow it must not have gotten posted.

      Gabriella is a rarity: a female physician, tutored by her father and practicing in Renaissance Venice. Her world falls apart, however, when her father disappears, leaving Gabriella only a cryptic note. This final letter becomes the starting point in her search for him, in order to discover his fate and restore her own livelihood.

      O'Melveny's research into Renaissance medicinal knowledge, practice, and techniques is obviously well done, and she weaves it into her story well. Personally, however, the characters and the storyline didn't grab me as much as I'd wished. I wasn't really feeling the romance and a female physician as the main character seemed a little cliche and anachronistic. I think it would be a worthwhile read for someone interested in the social and scientific worlds of the period--the milieu and the knowledge that forms the backbone of the story is sound and worthwhile. I'd like to read something of O'Melveny's in the future, however--if she can flesh out her characters and storylines a bit better, I think she'd be a great historical fiction writer given her impeccable research.
    • 3/5
      Gabriella is a sixteenth century woman doctor who journeys after her father, who departed home over ten years ago. Her travels take her through treacherous territory and dangerous villages. An especially well written scene takes her through a village in which the women are gone (I won't spoil the rest). Throughout the journey she updates entries in her medical dictionary and continues her medical studies. The author excels at creating the atmosphere of sixteenth century Europe and the writing is lyrical and easy to read. The descriptions of medical study and superstitions were fascinating. However, the characters were not always well developed and I never felt as if I knew Gabriella and it affected how I read the novel. Overall, this is a good historical fiction novel but maybe not as great as it could have been if the characters were better created. This was a Goodreads Firstreads Giveaway.
    • 4/5
      While the flower-y language had me wondering, the knowledgeable telling of the travels around old Europe in the late 1500s of a devoted daughter seeking her long-absent father drew me into, and along, the difficult journey. Many topics were handled by the writer with ease and expertise including, the strict class structure, discrimination against females and certain religions, the conflict between proven home remedies and the medical establishment of the day, lost loves, sexual indiscretion, and mental illness. This was a most interesting read from which I walked away a wiser person. Ms. O'Melveny receives my enthusiastic congratulations on a very good first novel and one that I will recommend to my friends.

      I received a free copy of "The Book of Madness and Cures" from Goodreads Firstreads.
    • 3/5
      Set in the late 16th Century, Dr Gabriella Mondini traverses Europe and Northern Africa in search of her missing father. The quality of prose made this an enjoyable read but the story didn't quite hook me. Certainly not a dissapointment though.
    • 4/5
      I received this book for free from Goodreads. It was released in April of 2012 as a hardcover and recently released as a paperback. It is 316 pages. It is a beautiful father and daughter story. I have the one on top. I was surprised that this had been released with two other covers already in the short time that it has been out. I couldn’t decide which I liked better.This is the journey of Gabriella the doctoressa as she searches for her father. Gabriella is a strong woman who was taught to be a doctor by her father. She is forced to quit doctoring after her father leaves. It is not an acceptable occupation for women in 17th century Venice. She follows in her father’s footsteps traveling to Switzerland, Germany, France, Scotland, the Netherlands and lastly Morocco. In each place she learns more and more about her father. She often dresses as a man to avoid trouble. In her journey she stays with the same doctors that her father stayed with and meets with many unsavory characters and difficult situations. Olmina and Lorenzo her family’s servants accompany her throughout most of the journey. Olmina is more like a mother to Gabriella. Gabriella’s own mother is disappointed in her and Gabriella has never been what her mother wished her to be.I found the treatments and the illnesses that Gabriella describes in the book, an interesting look at 17th century medicine. I should have seen the ending coming, but the book ended a little different from how I thought it would. It was a bitter-sweet ending. Gabriella finds love with Hamish and has a daughter, but this is only part of the ending. I don’t want to give the whole thing away.This book went pretty fast for me. I think I finished it in 3 or 4 days. It did seem to take a long time to get to the end of the story. The end was short in comparison to the length of the tale. It kept me reading to see what would happen to Gabriella next. I give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      An elegant portrait of a resolute woman who practices medicine in 16th-century Venice...The writing is superb, particularly when the author describes. Exotic locales and ancient superstitions. The book will especially attract readers who enjoy female¬ centered historical novels whose plots are not driven by romance. Intriguing.... Every new chapter brings a new adventure and a new piece of the puzzle.I enjoyed this book very much and do hope the author writes another historical fiction piece. It was very thoroughly researched; well-crafted; somewhat unusual writing style, but that added to the texture and grittiness of the story. I was even more pleased to see how creatively the author was able to craft a historical fiction book that tells a good story.
    • 3/5
      I received The Book of Madness and Cures through Netgalley for review – thanks to them and the publisher. I have to say I was disappointed with this book. I didn't really have expectations, per se; I think I've commented before about how odd it is to go into most Kindle books as blindly as I do. I rarely read a book right after acquiring it, so opening it up some time after having read the description that prompted me to buy it (or, in this case, request it), divorced of even the cover image, is a strange feeling. But the The Book's writing held my attention from the beginning; I liked the tone, and the first-person narrator, Gabriella Mondini, and the setting, and the idea: Gabriella is the daughter of a doctor, and of a temperament and mind to follow him in his profession. However, she lives in 1590 Venice, and a woman doctor is – barely – tolerated only if a man sponsors her. Which is fine, while her father does so; but he left some ten years ago on a journey to – ostensibly – gather medicines from foreign climes along with data for the tremendous Book of Diseases he has spent Gabriella's lifetime compiling. His last letter makes it clear he's not likely to come back, and he orders Gabriella not to send after him – so of course, since she loves him and also since she cannot continue to practice medicine without him, she packs her bags and convinces her servants to come with her to go find him, leaving her fretful mother (think Mrs. Bennet, in a way) all alone without a qualm. A journey through Renaissance Europe is a great frame for a story. The quest for tales of unfamiliar diseases and cures is also promising. That the journey is undertaken by a woman, accompanied only by an elderly couple, and is also following in her father's footsteps – this was where the disappointment began to set in for me. I continued to enjoy the writing; I continued to like Gabriella; but somehow I wasn't entirely satisfied by the settings, the descriptions of which seemed to be dominated by the religious and climactic temperatures rather than the taste of different food and the smell of foreign scents and the feel of different air. Also, I admit the Italianization and Renaissancization (I know, I'm tired and making up words now, sorry) of countries' names took some getting used to. So much of the writing felt quite contemporary – especially with things like Gabriella mentioning that something was a meter away (or deep or wide) when the metric system was not (as best I can find) invented for another 150 years or so – that, in the exhausted stressed-out stupor in which I read this, the antiquated names threw me. Yes, it took ages for the lightbulb to go off that the next country the travelers were headed for was Scotland. Yes, I felt stupid when I realized. Gabriella is an intelligent woman, a tremendous boon to her father's work while she surreptitiously begins her own book, focusing more on women's ailments. She is Different, a creature utterly apart from the ordinary run of women, particularly in the time period. Which is why I felt let down by her. The fact that during two of the stops along the way she falls, to one extent or another, in love with a handy (and of course young and handsome) intellectual – this did not feel like it fit with the rest of her personality. The fate of one of those young men went nowhere; it was a somewhat far-fetched and disturbing incident, and I can't think of a thing it added to the book. The romance Gabriella eventually tumbles into felt almost grafted on, and the disruption it threatened to her search for her father offended me slightly; here she is, on a Mission to find her father, setting out to prove everyone wrong about the womanly stereotypes, and she is about to be thrown completely off her undertaking by a man? Sigh. Worse, though, for me, is the complete illogic of the search. The idea is that Gabriella and her father wrote to each other fairly regularly over the ten years he's been gone, and now she will try to find him by following the path described in those letters. But does she start with the most recent letter, the warmest scent, the freshest trail? Well, no. She starts at the very beginning and literally follows her father's path from place to place to place. In a way, this is a great way to tell the tale. As she visits the people her father stayed with and worked with ten years ago, and eight years ago, and so on, as in a few cases she gathers up items he left behind him, it begins to be obvious that he's not well. There's something very, very wrong – and not physically. She sees her father's deterioration as an unfolding story, a puzzle being completed piece by piece and place by place; if she had done the logical thing and started at the end she would have been confronted with the end result and the book would have been a third the length. But I wish her choice of journey had been presented as the logical thing. I wish there had been some reasoning for it: she only knew her father's first location, and only on talking to the people there could she learn his next stop, and the next, and so on to the end. Oh well. Anecdotes from Gabriella's Book of Diseases are dusted throughout the book, along with samplings of her father's letters and bits of his book – but unless I completely missed the point (always possible) there is no corollary made between them and the journey as far as I could see, and no purpose other than entertainment value. And in fact for me the entertainment value was, while certainly present, somewhat limited by the fact that the tales told were about half an inch away from being fairy tales. These stories – of a woman covered in hair, and another so severely claustrophobic she could no longer live in a house, and of the black tears shed by those prevented from speech for long periods … There are documented medical cases of some version of the first two conditions, at least, but these stories themselves were fantastical, despite the fact that at least some were supposed to be from the direct experience of Gabriella and her father. If there had been more of a magical aura about the rest of the story, I think I would have swallowed the whole thing happily. As it was, the only real unreality of Gabriella's quest was the unlikelihood that a woman and a pair of elderly servants would have as successful a journey as they do (even with the women dressed as men at times). The contrast between the pretty thoroughly mundane of Gabriella's narration and the fantasy of the so-scientific Books just stuck in my throat a little. The cap to the disappointment was in the ending. No spoilers here, but I felt there was at the same time a too-complete resolution and a complete lack of resolution to the story. It wrapped up too quickly and neatly while still leaving bits and small ends dangling annoyingly. Overall, it felt like a near miss.
    • 2/5
      Since the unfortunate passing of the author of the "Mistress of the Art of the Death" series, I have been hoping to find another historical fiction series involving a strong female doctor. Alas, this one cannot fill the bill.In 16th Century Venice, a young “willful” woman doctor decides, after her father has already been missing for ten years, that she must leave immediately and go find him, even though she has no idea where he is, having received only occasional letters over the years from far and wide. The story continues with improbable premises, dropped plot lines, confusing descriptors (fleshy buildings?) and long, dry passages, especially those representing new sections of a purported medical book the doctor has been writing.Evaluation: Someone will find this fascinating! I wasn't such a one.
    • 3/5
      Gabriella Montini’s physician father left ten years ago to complete his encyclopedia of diseases. Prohibited by the Guild of Physicians to practice medicine because her mentor is gone, Gabriella is forced to cross Europe in search of him. “It was then I knew I must set my life in motion or disappear.” So begins her quest to find her father. Accompanied by faithful Olmina and Lorenzo, more family to her than her own mother, she sets off loaded with provisions, satchels, her medicine chest and her father’s letters. She resolves not only to find her father, but also to unearth diseases and cures hitherto unknown to the Doctor’s Guild. The adventure morphs into her road to self-discovery and affirmation.The concept of a sixteenth century woman doctor begs for our attention. That she would trek across Germany, Holland, France, Scotland and into Morocco activates our interest. The author braids correspondence, travelogue and Renaissance medical practice into her debut novel. Period detail abounds. The book has moments of lush, lyrical writing. “Outside the sunlight bled from the red-tiled roofs and left them ashen.” Sometimes lumbering, sometimes full of marvels, the book lacks consistency and meanders, perhaps a reflection of Gabriella’s travels.Award-winning poet, Regna O’Melveny, steps into the historical fiction circle with her debut novel, The Book of Madness and Cures. Extensive travels in India contributed to her research. A Renaissance woodblock engraving of the human anatomy, which would have inspired doctors of that time, was a stimulus to write the book.Maps and an interactive reading guide may be found on the author’s website.Little, Brown and Company graciously supplied the review copy for my unbiased opinion.Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont