Formerly beautiful & at one time betrothed to a fallen soldier, Bonaria Urrai has long held covenant with the dead. Midwife to the dying, easing their suffering & sometimes ending it, she is revered & feared in equal measure as the village`s Accabadora. When Bonaria adopts Maria, the unloved fourth child of a widow, she tries to shield the girl from the truth about her role as an angel of mercy. Moved by the pleas of a young man crippled in an accident, she breaks her golden rule of familial consent, & in the recriminations that follow, Maria rejects her & flees Sardinia for Turin. Adrift in the big city, Maria strives as ever to find love & acceptance, but her efforts are overshadowed by the creeping knowledge of a debt unpaid, of a duty & destiny that must one day be hers. Accabadora has been awarded seven major literary prizes, including Italy`s prestigious Premio Campiello. An exceptional English-language debut, it weaves a narrative of rare grace & subtlety into a sensual tapestry of local nuance, atmosphere & dialect.