Venice, 1556: a wealthy, bustling, multi-cultural city, with a standard of living four times that of anywhere else in Europe. Into this exciting world comes twenty-year-old English protestant Richard Stocker, recovering from the execution of his friend Lady Jane Grey (a friendship recounted in Edward Charles’s debut novel In the Shadow of Lady Jane.)
Soon Richard finds himself caught up in the complexities of La Serenissima, and involved with three of the city’s most remarkable women: Faustina Contarini, a nun imprisoned in a convent by her noble family; Yasmeen Ahmed, Muslim clerk and book-keeper to the great artist Tintoretto; and Veronica Franco, artists’ model, courtesan and poet. Each has her own story to tell, but they have one thing in common: they are all daughters of the Doge, held captive by the contradictory laws and regulations of this teeming city.
This is a thrilling account of a young man’s transformation, as he discovers love, faith and deception in a colourfully evoked Renaissance Venice.
- ISBN10 0230018122
- ISBN13 9780230018129
- Publish Date 4 May 2007
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 12 June 2012
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Macmillan New Writing
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English