Giovanni Lelli

When a large Iranian-American family gathers in New York City for the patriarch’s heart transplant, a family secret is uncovered and catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past.

Maria suffers from the strangest illness; it resembles cancer but with one distinct difference: it somehow connects Maria to the fate of a 15th century woman named Donna Maria. Maria begins to time travel, gradually discovering the absolute brutality of history. She learns that Donna Maria was a Hungarian princess taken to a Bursa harem as a concubine of Ottoman's Sultan.