Showing titles in Renaissance

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...

Written in the winter of 1849, The Scarlet Letter unfolds the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman branded as an adulteress in the harsh Puritan world of seventeenth-century New England. As Hester calls on her inner strength to transcend her shame, the scarlet letter ceases to be a stigma and...

Trop de faveur tue décrit les intrigues, les rivalités, et les amours coupables, qui se nouent dans un couvent de Florence à l'époque de Ferdinand de Médicis. Par cette Chronique italienne, Stendhal nous fait pénétrer dans la violence et les passions de l'Italie renaissante. Si le thème est éminemment romantique, l'analyse précise des sentiments et des mobiles de chacun est d'une grande modernité.

Le 6 novembre 1717, Jean-Sébastien Bach est mis aux arrêts par le prince de Weimar « en raison de son attitude obstinée à vouloir obtenir un congé injustifié ». À trente-deux ans, Bach, célèbre dans l'Europe entière, se retrouve en prison. Lucas Traum, un jeune membre de la garde du prince, chargé de le surveiller, consigne chaque instant de cet enfermement. La froideur imposée par sa fonction disparaît bien vite au contact du musicien. Commence alors une relation d'amitié, de respect et d'admiration.

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.

'Alison Weir transforms Henry VIII's much-maligned fourth wife into a woman of passion, courage and mystery' Tracy Borman Alison Weir, historian and author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen, Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession and Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen...

 When Crispin Daventry fled London’s most notorious gaming hell, the Underworld, with a broken heart and empty pockets, he wasn’t sure he would ever return. But after a spell of debauchery in Italy with his new friend Count Este, he believes he has finally cast aside all thoughts of romance and is ready to pay back his debts, seeking his own unique revenge on the venue that bankrupted him.

From the acclaimed author of The Night Portrait comes a stunning historical novel about two women, separated by five hundred years, who each hide Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—with unintended consequences. France, 1939 At the dawn of World War II, Anne Guichard, a young archivist employed at...

Beasts Royal is the second book written by Patrick O’Brian – made available, at last, for the first time since the 1930s and beautifully repackaged. Published when Patrick O’Brian was just nineteen, this is the enchanting, often bloodthirsty collection of twelve tales of animal adventure...

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...

Ten-year-old Agata’s world is shaken at the sudden death of her mother. Left only with her egregious father, a working musician in Venice, her ailing grandmother sends her to the well-known orphanage, hidden from everything she’s ever known. Agata auditions for the conservatory style music school where music is both salvation and spectacle.

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...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Sisters of Treason by Elizabeth Fremantle. Lady Jane Grey has just been executed by her cousin Mary Tudor and her two younger sisters, Mary and Catherine, live in the shadow of their sister's tragic demise. Lady Catherine's fatal...

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.

Il fascino della Firenze dei Medici. Un affresco maledetto. Una verità perduta. Firenze 1458. Lavinia, ferma davanti alla tela, immagina come mescolare i vari pigmenti: il rosso cinabro, l'azzurro, l'arancio. Ma sa che le è proibito. Perché una donna non può dipingere, può solo coltivare di nascosto il sogno dell'arte. Fino al giorno in cui nella bottega dello zio arriva Piero della Francesca, uno dei più talentuosi pittori dell'epoca.

*Winner of the CWA Historical Dagger 2023* 'A great insight into Renaissance Florence. What I love about these books is the seamless weaving of factual history with a great story' – Abir Mukherjee Florence. Spring, 1537. When Cesare Aldo investigates a report of intruders at a convent in the...

When impoverished watchmaker Caron invents a pioneering device that could revolutionise timekeeping, his fortunes begin to change. Marrying a young, upper-class widow, he takes on a new noble name - de Beaumarchais - and sets out to conquer Louis XV's court. But his attempts to rise through the ranks of Versailles society are blocked by royal clockmaker Lepaute - as well as courtly crushes, rumours of war and illicit printing.

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.

England, 1613. At the dazzling but brutal court of King James I, politician and philosopher Francis Bacon, the cleverest person in England, the inventor of the modern world, has a fight to survive. A life-threatening alliance of his enemies has formed around the king's exquisite but noxious lover, Carr. Bacon, always the outsider and the plotter, goes to his friend, James' neglected queen, and together they come up with a plan. 

Stroke by stroke, color by color, the past comes alive as a young woman in Lombardy, Italy, trains to paint with the masters. Will her ambition be too much for them? Or will she secure her place in the world of Renaissance art, despite them? As Sofonisba struggles to make her name, the Spanish empire invades Italy. With Michelangelo as her mentor and her father as her champion, Sofonisba dreams of painting the Spanish king.