The Botticelli Secret: A Novel of Renaissance Italy (Reading Group Gold)

by Marina Fiorato

The third unforgettable historical love story set in Italy from Marina Fiorato, author of the bestseller THE GLASSBLOWER OF MURANO. For fans of Philippa Gregory, Sarah Dunant and Alison Weir.

Florence looks like gold and smells like sulphur . . .In the colourful world of fifteenth-century Italy, Luciana Vetra is young and beautiful, a part-time model and full-time whore. When she is asked to pose as the goddess Flora for Sandro Botticelli's painting La Primavera, she is willing to oblige - until the artist abruptly sends her away without payment. Affronted, she steals an unfinished version of the painting - only to find that someone is ready to kill her to get it back.

As friends and associates are murdered around her, Luciana turns to the one man who has never tried to exploit her beauty, Brother Guido della Torre, a novice at the monastery of Santa Croce. Fleeing Florence together, Luciana and Guido race through the nine great cities of Renaissance Italy, desperately trying to decode the painting's secrets before their enemies stop them.

• ISBN10: 0312606362
• ISBN13: 9780312606367
• Publish Date: 30 March 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 544
• Language: English

Reviews

[Eve1972]

This was sort of like historical fiction meets Dan brown. The story centers around Sandro Botticelli's masterpiece Primavera, the hidden clues within etc. It kept me interested for the most part, but could have probably lost about 50 pages in the middle as it seemed to drag a bit. Overall a good read though.

[elysium]

I did enjoy the book but there was some things that annoyed me. I thinks the way it was written was too modern. I'm not sure but I doubt people that time said "What the fuck" or "For fuck's sake". And while I don't generally mind swearing, I didn't like how she constantly used the word fuck. And I would have liked some more romance between Guido and Luciana.