Marina Fiorato

Abandoned by her widowed father, Kit rides the Orphan Train west where a farm family takes her in to help with chores, never expecting that one day she would overcome all the obstacles before her and become a successful writer.

"Venice, 1576. Five years after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto, a ship steals unnoticed into Venice bearing a deadly cargo. A man, more dead than alive, disembarks and staggers into Piazza San Marco. He brings a gift to Venice from Constantinople. Within days the city is infected with bubonic plague--and the Turkish Sultan has his revenge. But the ship also holds a secret stowaway--Feyra, a young and beautiful harem doctor fleeing a future as the Sultan's concubine. Only her wits and medical knowledge keep her alive as the plague ravages Venice. In despair, the Doge commissions the architect Andrea Palladio to build the greatest church of his career--an offering to God so magnificent that Venice will be saved. But Palladio's life is in danger too, and it will require all the skills of Annibale Cason, the city's finest plague doctor, to keep him alive. What Annibale had not counted on was meeting Feyra, who is now under Palladio's protection--an impossible woman whose medical skills and determination are matched only by his own. From Marina Fiorato, author of the acclaimed historical novel The Glassblower of Murano, comes a triumphant return to historical Venice with Venetian Bargain"--

"Hidden in the language of Shakespeare's best-loved comedy Much Ado About Nothing are several clues to an intriguing tale. It seems that the witty lovers Beatrice and Benedick had a previous love affair that ended bitterly. But how did they meet? Why did they part? And what brought them together again? When nineteen year old Beatrice is brought to live at her uncle's court in Sicily to be a companion to his daughter, she first meets Benedick, a young soldier who is there with a Spanish lord on a month-long sojourn. As they begin to wage their war of wit, their words mask their deep love for one another. But the pair are cruelly parted by misunderstanding and slander. Heartbroken, Benedick sails to England on the ill-fated Spanish Armada. Beatrice returns to her home in the North and an unwanted betrothal. While Benedick must fight for his life on board ship, Beatrice fights for her freedom from an arranged marriage. From the point of view of Beatrice and Benedick we hear the lovers tell their own story, taking us from the sunlit southern courts of Sicily, to the crippled Armada on the frozen northern seas, to the gorgeous Renaissance cities of the north. From Marina Fiorato, author of the acclaimed historical novel The Glassblower of Murano, comes a beautifully imagined Beatrice and Benedick. "--

Powieść o miłości i sztuce osadzona w Lombardii w okresie rozkwitu włoskiego renesansu.

Bernardino Luini, favourite apprentice of Leonardo da Vinci, is commissioned to paint a religious fresco in the hills of Lombardy. His eye is caught by the beautiful Simonetta di Saronno, a young noblewoman who has lost her husband to battle.Captivated by her beauty and sadness, Bernardino paints Simonetta's likeness, immortalising her as the Madonna in his miraculous frescoes in Saronno's chruch. As the sittings progress, artist and model fall in love, and Simonetta reciprocates by creating a drink from the juice of almonds - the famous Amaretto di Saronno. As the frescoes and the liqueur near their completion, the couple's affair distils into a heady brew of religious scandal which threatens their love, and ultimately their lives.

Amid the intrigue and danger of 18th-century Italy, a young woman becomes embroiled in romance and treachery with a rider in the Palio, the breathtaking horse race set in Siena. For her nineteenth birthday, Pia Tolomei, the most beautiful woman in Siena, was given a necklace and a husband ... It is 1723, on the eve of the Palio, the white-knuckle horse race that is the most important in Siena. Everyone will be watching, but for two of the noblewomen in the crowd, far more than the coveted prize is at stake. Headstrong Pia, once the greatest marriage prize in the city, is praying that her betrothed will be killed in the famously dangerous race, while the Governess of Siena, Duchess Violante Beatrix de' Medici, is at the center of a plot that threatens her very existence. When the trumpets sound, Pia finds herself drawn to a magnificent, unknown horseman, clad in raival's colors, who will tip the course of the race in a way that will bind them in a web of intrigue and passion.