During the Renaissance, Genevieve, at age twelve, is forced into an abusive marriage to a man who is obsessed with her. After a couple of years, desperate to escape, she flees to a monastery disguising herself as a boy, where she is befriended by a young Italian novice. She soon finds herself in love with him and adventures ensue in Florence, that involve the painter Botticelli. Sadly her happiness is interrupted because she must come to terms with her husband before she can be with the man she loves.

Born in Paris, Valerie Foote spent her early years there, then moved to Nyack, New York. She studied Classical Archaeology at Dartmouth and attended several years at art schools in London, California, and Baltimore. She worked for twenty-five years as an elementary school and ESL teacher in the Washington D.C. public schools, and enjoyed the cultural diversity of her students. She spent a couple of years soul searching in a Zen Buddhist monastery in the Catskill Mountains. She comes from a family of writers and currently lives in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, with her daughter and three cats.