Till Death Do Us Part

Roma Corvo first meets Felice "John" Maggio while she lies in a hospital room, injured and bleeding. He arrives as though he alone could heal her, and he seems to understand that her sense of security has been shattered along with her body.

Her mind warns her off. Her heart decides to trust him anyway, and she falls in love with a gangster. She later describes the omens she ignored as rain and a broken mirror on a wedding day.

The book opens with a farewell letter addressed to John. In it Roma writes that the two of them were doomed from the start. She runs from him, but he follows, bound by a promise she made.

The story is told in two voices, Roma's and Felice's. Felice lives among blurred lines and gray areas, yet he treats any vow as sacred. When Roma speaks the words "till death do us part," he takes them as binding.

The question the romance turns on is how far that vow reaches once she has fled, and whether anything can release him from it.