Italian Hours features three short, interconnected novellas. Tricks of the Heart, set in Rome, explores the impact of the recent papal conclave on a group of Romans and expats. Holiness of the Heart's Affections finds a woman returning to Florence after the death of the estranged love of her life to process that loss. To Cease Upon the Midnight Hour charts the journey of a pianist who is trying to outrun the progress of a motor neuron disease in order to give his last concert at La Fenice in Venice.