Showing titles in Renaissance

Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card. She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.

Rome, 1659. Months after the plague has ravaged Rome, men are still dying in unnatural numbers, and rumour has it that their corpses do not decay as they should. The Papal authorities commission prosecutor Stefano Bracchi to investigate, telling him he will need considerable mettle to reach the truth. To the west of the Tiber, Girolama and her female friends are at work, helping other women with childbirths and foretelling their futures. Elsewhere in the city, a young wife, Anna, must find a way to escape her abusive husband. But in a city made by men for men, there are no easy paths out.

Florence, 1415. Banker Cosimo Medici is looked down upon as a jumped up money-changer. Then he marries the noble Contessina de Bardi and becomes the richest man in Europe. But his wealth and power threaten the Florentine elite, who are determined to bring him down. However, the House of Medici cannot be crushed that easily. Sixty years and many violent deaths later, the family are the unquestioned, ruthless rulers of Florence.

It's 1593, Elizabeth I is Queen and everyone is terrified of the worst outbreak of plague in a generation. Shakespeare has only written six plays and is lagging behind his friend Christopher Marlowe, London's leading playwright. When Marlowe is stabbed to death in mysterious circumstances, rumours abound—but the one that won’t go away is that Shakespeare did it to remove his greatest rival. Will is determined to clear his name, and teams up with his old flame, Marlowe’s sister Ann, who has plenty of secrets of her own.

The second instalment in a prize-winning series charting the rise of the House of Medici as they become Masters of Florence and progenitors of the Renaissance. Florence, 1469. The Medici family is preparing for the marriage of its son and heir Lorenzo. His heart belongs to another, but this union will strengthen the alliance with a powerful Roman family. Torn between love and power, the bounties and the compromises of governing, Lorenzo has become complacent. He has forgotten the bloody path he forged on his ascent to power and the enemies left in his wake.

THE NEW BESTSELLING SERIES FROM THE MASTER OF HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION, S. J. PARRIS England, 1601. Treason threatens the realm. When the body of a Scottish envoy washes up on the banks of the Thames, the Queen’s most powerful spymaster, Robert Cecil, is accused of arranging the murder. Cecil...

The extraordinary novel tracing a centuries-old curse back to its beginning from the author of PRACTICAL MAGIC and THE DOVEKEEPERS We first met the Owens in the glorious novel Practical Magic. We discovered the tragedy of the Owens siblings in Rules of Magic. Now we learn how it all began...

Bloomsbury presents Cast Away by Francesca De Tores, read by Thoren Ferguson How big must a man’s folly be, that it can cost him the whole of his life? As big as a ship; as big as an island. 1704: Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk has been abandoned by his own shipmates on a remote...

Brough to you by Penguin. A young noblewoman accused of murder, awaits execution. Imprisoned in the Corte Savella, she has captured the hearts and sympathy of all Rome. . . This is the true and tragic tale of Beatrice Cenci. Murder most foul or vengeance most just? Helpless victim or resolute...

Brought to you by Penguin. Disgraced. Beheaded. And out for revenge . . . When Anne Boleyn wakes up after her execution she finds she is not yet ready for death. She has unfinished business with the king who had her murdered and is determined to secure the future of her daughter, Elizabeth...

In sixteenth-century France, as the heiress to an aristocratic fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of privilege. Then she is orphaned, and her enigmatic and volatile guardian squanders her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to the new French colonies of North America. Isolated and afraid, Marguerite befriends her guardian’s servant and the two develop an intense attraction. But when their relationship is discovered, they are brutally punished, abandoned on a small island with no hope for rescue.

‘Full of Hoffman’s bewitching and lucid prose and vivid characters, The Book of Magic is ultimately about the very human magic of family and love and actions that echo through generations… it casts a spell’ —Matt Haig THE STUNNING, UNFORGETTABLE CONCLUSION TO THE BELOVED PRACTICAL...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of M.M. Kaye’s epic novel of love and war. M.M. Kaye’s masterwork is a vast, rich and vibrant tapestry of love and war that spans over twenty years, moving from the foothills of the Himalayas, to the burning plains, to the besieged British Mission in...

How to Be Both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving, genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life's givens get given a second chance.

February 1605. A series of killings shake the quiet life of Devon's Tavy valley. Country doctor Gabriel Taverner, summoned to examine the bodies, believes the murders are somehow connected to a mysterious woman recently discovered in shocking circumstances. Gabriel is determined to solve the mystery, and soon uncovers clues that link his unexpected patient to the brutal killings.

The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Anneke Sheldrake suddenly finds her family bankrupted when her father’s ship is swept away at sea. Forced to find a way to provide for herself and her siblings, Anneke rejects an offer of marriage from a despised cousin and instead turns to her late mother’s family business – brewing ale. Armed with her mother’s recipes, she then makes a bold deal with her father’s aristocratic employer, putting her home and family at risk.

Each night, after dark, men flock to Bankside seeking girls of easy virtue, prostitutes known as the Winchester Geese. Joanie Toogood has worked the streets of Southwark since childhood, but her path is changed forever by an encounter with Francis Wareham, a spy for the King’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Meanwhile, across the river, at the glittering court of Henry VIII, Wareham also sets his cap at Evelyn and Isabella Bourne, members of the Queen’s household and the girls, along with Joanie, are drawn into intrigue and the shadow of the executioner’s blade.

‘Oh my word… fantastic… [The] stories intertwine so beautifully, it’s truly amazing. Such a lot of research must have to have been done but so worth it. I can’t recommend this book enough.’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Could a rediscovered map show her the way? Present day...

Brought to you by Penguin. Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its collection of medieval and Renaissance art. There she is drawn into a...

From “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory comes this instant New York Times bestseller that tells the story of the remarkable Elizabeth of York, daughter of the White Queen, and mother to the House of Tudor. When Henry Tudor picks up the crown of England from the mud of...