New Releases by Sarah Dunant

Een 16e eeuwse vrouw, die door haar ouders in het klooster is gedumpt, wordt verliefd op een zanger.

Du pillage de Rome aux fêtes galantes de Venise, les aventures extraordinaires d''une courtisane du XVIe siècle. Fiammetta Bianchini est l''une des courtisanes les plus riches et les plus célèbres de Rome : sa beauté et son esprit lui ont valu les faveurs de plus d''un cardinal. Une nuit, son serviteur, le nain Bucino, lui apprend une terrible nouvelle : la ville est assiégée par les troupes sanguinaires de Charles Quint. Ils s''enfuient, avec pour seul trésor quelques pierres précieuses et un exemplaire richement relié des sonnets de Pétrarque, glissé à la hâte dans leurs maigres bagages. Leur errance à travers l''Italie va les conduire à Venise où le destin s''acharne à nouveau. Mais c''est sans compter le soutien indéfectible du rusé Bucino.

Als er op een Engelse beauty-farm sabotage gepleegd wordt, gaat privé-detective Hannah Wolfe daar als cliënte rondkijken.

My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor’s army blew a hole in the wall of God’s eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment. Thus begins In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of life in Renaissance Italy. Escaping the sack of Rome in 1527, with their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her dwarf companion, Bucino, head for Venice, the shimmering city born out of water to become a miracle of east-west trade: rich and rancid, pious and profitable, beautiful and squalid. With a mix of courage and cunning they infiltrate Venetian society. Together they make the perfect partnership: the sharp-tongued, sharp-witted dwarf, and his vibrant mistress, trained from birth to charm, entertain, and satisfy men who have the money to support her. Yet as their fortunes rise, this perfect partnership comes under threat, from the searing passion of a lover who wants more than his allotted nights to the attentions of an admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his sultan’s court. But Fiammetta and Bucino’s greatest challenge comes from a young crippled woman, a blind healer who insinuates herself into their lives and hearts with devastating consequences for them all. A story of desire and deception, sin and religion, loyalty and friendship, In the Company of the Courtesan paints a portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history: It is a picture that remains vivid long after the final page.

En la Venecia del siglo XVI, el arte de la seducción es el arte de la supervivencia. Una mezcla de Memorias de una Geisha y La joven de la perla. Escapando al saqueo de Roma en 1527, mientras en sus estómagos se agitan las joyas que se han tragado, la cortesana Fiammetta y su compañero enano Bucino se dirigen a Venecia. Juntos forman la perfecta sociedad: el enano de agudo ingenio y su ama, adiestrada desde la cuna para seducir, entretener y satisfacer a los hombres. Pero cuando la supervivencia se convierte de nuevo en fortuna, la alianza de esta insólita pareja se ve amenazada.

Kurtisanen Fiammetta og dværgen Bucina slår sig ned i renæssancens Venedig. De når til tops i den farverige by med rigdom, kunst og skønhed og møder alverdens spændende personligheder - alle med skjulte motiver

Florenz 1582. Als die Nonnen von Santa Vitella Schwester Lukrezia für ihre Beerdigung herrichten, machen sie eine verstörende Entdeckung: Eine tätowierte Schlange ringelt sich über den Leib der Toten ? der Kopf des Reptils zeigt das Gesicht eines jungen Mannes ...

Florence, fin du règne du plus fameux des mécènes, Laurent de Médicis. Jusqu''alors, les artistes glorifiaient Dieu en célébrant, dans une profusion de couleurs et de lumières, son chef-d''œuvre absolu le corps humain. Mais bientôt, des cadavres affreusement mutilés sont découverts aux abords des églises. Boticelli lui-même doit soustraire sa Naissance de Vénus aux griffes des inquisiteurs. La terreur et la haine se propagent dans le cœur des habitants depuis qu''un prédicateur au profil d''aigle et aux yeux de braise, le moine Savonarole, fustige la nouvelle Sodome et organise la répression. En mettant le destin de Florence en miroir avec celui d''Alessandra Cecchi, une jeune fille rebelle et esthète, taraudée par l''envie de peindre et la curiosité, Sarah Dunant réalise ici une fresque éblouissante.

Die Hure Fiametta Bianchini entkommt im Jahre 1527 mit knapper Not dem Massaker des Sacco di Roma und baut sich in Venedig mit Hilfe des Zwergs Bucino eine erfolgreiche Karriere auf.

Elizabeth is a modern woman. Smart. Independent. As sexual as she wants to be–with whomever she wants to be. But a breakup with her academic boyfriend has hit her harder than she cares to admit. And while her latest gig, translating a glitzy Czech thriller into English, offends her literary sensibilities, it arouses others with its steamy scenes of eroticism, violence, submission, and dominance. Then, when her favorite Van Morrison CD disappears from its rack and her house is inexplicably violated, Elizabeth is afraid she’s starting to lose it–she even consults a local vicar about the possibility of poltergeists. But what this woman in the lovely Victorian is experiencing is not supernatural. Nor is it madness. For in the dead of night, she will suddenly come face-to-face with her tormentor. She will smell him, she will touch him, and she will make a choice. Then the real haunting will begin.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Birth of Venus comes the first novel in the gripping Hannah Wolfe mystery series. Hannah Wolfe, a London based private eye, has worked jobs ranging from department store surveillance to babysitting billionaires. But every once in a while she gets a case that''s worthy of the great detective novels she ruefully admires—and at first glance, the latest case doesn''t fit that bill. She''s asked to find a missing ballet dancer, Carolyn Hamilton. Simple enough—Hannah figures the young dancer just doesn''t want to be found. But she is found, and not by Hannah. Her body is fished out of the Thames by the police, stones in her pockets and an eight-month old fetus in her belly. To the police it''s a no-brainer case—single pregnant woman can''t face her impending responsibilities, writes a suicide note, and takes a leap off a bridge. But Hannah can''t shake the suspicion that there''s much more to this case than meets the eye. In fact, she''s fairly certain that the suicide note the police found in Carolyn''s apartment wasn''t there when she herself had gone snooping around just hours before the officially established time of death. Hannah''s determination to put together the pieces in the puzzle of Carolyn''s short life takes her from the dance world of London to the upper echelons of Parisian society in search of the father of Carolyn''s unborn child. When his explanation only raises more questions, Hannah finds the young dancer''s pregnancy becoming the focus of her suspicions and her own ambivalent feelings about relationships and motherhood.

文艺复兴时期的佛罗伦萨,群星闪耀,奇才辈出。波提切利的维纳斯已经诞生......一个物欲横流与宗教极端主义对抗的时代,一个身上纹着毒蛇与男像的修女,梅第奇的私生女、恋童者的妻子,娈童的妹妹,不凡的身世、纷乱的家庭,与婚姻作交易换来的与天才画家的爱情......

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra’s parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, Florence is changing, increasingly subject to the growing suppression imposed by the fundamentalist monk Savonarola, who is seizing religious and political control. Alessandra and her native city are caught between the Medici state, with its love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, and the hellfire preaching and increasing violence of Savonarola’s reactionary followers. Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra’s married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain’s most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.

First it''s just a missing favourite CD, then music playing in an empty kitchen at midnight ... Alone with only her cat and the hard-boiled thriller she is translating from Czech, Elizabeth Skvorecky is unsettled. Is there someone or something in the house? Poltergeist? Ghost? Or is she losing her mind?