''So at fifteen, spread belly-down upon the floor, a black sheet hunched over me and a candle at my foot and head, my lips pressed on stone, litanies in my ears as the priest broke and entered my shocked fist to slide the ring on my finger, I promised to take no other husband than Christ. I almost meant it. In that heady moment the vow seemed no great sacrifice: I''d never known a man, but I had tasted chocolate.''

One unforgettable night in 1785, in a theatre in Drury Lane, the heady alchemy of love and murder suddenly fuses the lives of Mimosina Dolcezza, a Venetian actress, and Valentine Greatrakes, prince of London''s medical underworld.

The Remedy is a ravishing love story that seamlessly weaves fiction with historical fact in rich and details prose.