Down the long generations many sons in the Cole family have been drawn to medicine, but only a few have possessed "the gift," the ability to feel impending death in others. Now, in Matters of Choice the phenomenon emerges again in the brightly lit world of modern science - not in a son, but in a young woman doctor, Roberta Jeanne d'Arc Cole, known as R.J. The first time R.J. disappoints her beloved father is when she is born female; the second, when she chooses to study law rather than medicine. But destiny overtakes her when she discovers that she has inherited "the gift," which sometimes will allow her to intervene and save a life, and sometimes will just give her a chance to say good-bye. Hoping for a simpler, richer life, R.J. forgoes a career at a prestigious Boston hospital for a country practice, but she finds herself facing the same pressing issues she had opted to leave behind in Boston... and the agonizing intimate choices that confront all women.