Sarah Dunant - Böcker

'The pre-eminent novelist of Renaissance Italy' S. J. PARRIS, OBSERVER'Dunant triumphs, like all good novelists: in a deft, shrewd, precise use of killer detail' CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN'She writes like a painter, and thinks like a philosopher . . . A tour de force of storytelling' AMANDA FOREMAN'A writer of powerful historical imagination and wicked literary gifts' SIMON SCHAMAAnna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going - just that she'll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life - as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother. She has no premonition that she will become a statistic in a missing person file. Left at home is Anna's beloved six-year-old daughter Lily, her gay friend Paul, who is surrogate father to Lily, and her eccentric best friend Estella. When Anna doesn't return, they make uneasy excuses until, as time passes, the mind-numbing possibility that Anna might not be coming back becomes terrifyingly real. And while those closest to her battle with their imaginations, Anna is on a dark journey - in one scenario Anna is on a ravishing, sexual adventure, on the other, much darker voyage, she is the victim of a stranger's dangerous sexual fantasy. In a masterpiece of emotionally intelligent and nerve-wracking suspense, Sarah Dunant takes us to the very edge.

'Dunant triumphs, like all good novelists: in a deft, shrewd, precise use of killer detail' CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN'She writes like a painter, and thinks like a philosopher . . . A tour de force of storytelling' AMANDA FOREMAN'A writer of powerful historical imagination and wicked literary gifts' SIMON SCHAMATerrifying, dark and bold, Sarah Dunant's breakthrough psychological thriller transcends genres and audiences; it crosses all boundaries, encroaching on the darker side of sex and fantasy, male and female.Elizabeth Skorvecky has just come out of a long-term relationship with her boyfriend. Alone in her Victorian house, her only companions are her cat, a trashy crime novel she's translating from Czech, and her music. As the summer ends and the days draw in, unsettling things begin to happen. First it's just a missing CD, then music playing in an empty kitchen at midnight, then a table laid for breakfast for two. Poltergeist? Insanity?When Elizabeth wakes at four in the morning to find a man sitting at the end of her bed, she knows, sickeningly , she's very sane - and being stalked. She also discovers that the means of surviving can be just as shocking as surrender.

'The pre-eminent novelist of Renaissance Italy' S. J. PARRIS, OBSERVER'Dunant triumphs, like all good novelists: in a deft, shrewd, precise use of killer detail' CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN'She writes like a painter, and thinks like a philosopher . . . A tour de force of storytelling' AMANDA FOREMAN'A writer of powerful historical imagination and wicked literary gifts' SIMON SCHAMAIs Elly's love affair with a New York cocaine dealer too deep and dark to be broken - even by an old friend? When Marla responds to Elly's call from America she finds herself ensnared in the twilight world of drug smuggling. Though she thinks she can see through the lies, Marla too begins to get sucked in, equally fascinated and repelled by Lenny, master of the cocaine circuit. In the end, who is she most frightened of - the drug or her 'golden boy' Lenny? Obsession, betrayal and revenge twist into an ever-tightening knot in this tense psychological tale.

By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched only by its brutality and corruption. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy, he is defined not just by his wealth, charisma and power, but by his blood: a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If he is to succeed, he must use his Machiavellian son and innocent daughter. Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty breathes life into the astonishing family of Alexander VI and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex, and relentless.

A Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the YearA Cosmopolitan Best Book of the Year A History Today Book of the Year'Dunant has made completely her own the story of the Italy's most infamous ruling family . . . in a way that we can see, hear and smell' Mark Lawson, Guardian'A stunning tale of power and family . . . In Dunant's telling of the Borgia story, Lucrezia is not the sluttish power-crazed poisoner of legend . . . her glorious prose makes her version irresistible' Antonia Senior, The Times'Stuffed with violence, danger and passion' Daily Mail Conjuring up the past in all its complexity, horror and pleasures, In The Name of the Family confirms Sarah Dunant's place as the leading novelist of the Renaissance and one of the most acclaimed historical fiction writers of our age.In the Name of the Family - as Blood and Beauty did before - holds up a mirror to a turbulent moment of history, sweeping aside the myths to bring alive the real Borgia family; complicated, brutal, passionate and glorious. Here is a thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia's doomed years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli.It is 1502 and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womaniser and master of political corruption is now on the Papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, aged twenty-two, already thrice married and a pawn in her father's plans, is discovering her own power. And then there is Cesare Borgia: brilliant, ruthless and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with the diplomat Machiavelli which offers a master class on the dark arts of power and politics. What Machiavelli learns will go on to inform his great work of modern politics, The Prince.But while the pope rails against old age and his son's increasing maverick behaviour it is Lucrezia who will become the Borgia survivor: taking on her enemies and creating her own place in history.

In the Name of the Family - as Blood and Beauty did before - holds up a mirror to a turbulent moment of history, sweeping aside the myths to bring alive the real Borgia family; complicated, brutal, passionate and glorious. Here is a thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia's doomed years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli. It is 1502 and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womaniser and master of political corruption is now on the Papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, aged twenty-two, already thrice married and a pawn in her father's plans, is discovering her own power. And then there is Cesare Borgia: brilliant, ruthless and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with the diplomat Machiavelli which offers a master class on the dark arts of power and politics. What Machiavelli learns will go on to inform his great work of modern politics, The Prince. But while the pope rails against old age and his son's increasing maverick behavior it is Lucrezia who will become the Borgia survivor: taking on her enemies and creating her own place in history.Conjuring up the past in all its complexity, horror and pleasures, In The Name of the Family confirms Sarah Dunant's place as the leading novelist of the Renaissance and one of the most acclaimed historical fiction writers of our age.

With their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed, the courtesan Fiammetta and her companion dwarf Bucino escape the sack of Rome. It's 1527. They head for the shimmering, decadent city of Venice. Sarah Dunant's epic novel of sixteenth-century Renaissance Italy is a story about the sins of pleasure and the pleasures of sin, an intoxicating mix of fact and fiction, and a dazzling portait of one of the worlds greatest cities at its most potent moment in history.

1570 in the Italian city of Ferrara. Sixteen-year-old Serafina is fipped by her family from an illicit love affair and forced into the convent of Santa Caterina, renowned for its superb music. Serafina's one weapon is her glorious voice, but she refuses to sing. Madonna Chiara, an abbess as fluent in politics as she is in prayer, finds her new charge has unleased a power play - rebellion, ecstasies and hysterias - within the convent. However, watching over Serafina is Zuana, the sister in charge of the infirmary, who understands and might even challenge her incarceration.

Alessandra is not quite fifteen when her prosperous merchant father brings a young painter back with him from Holland to adorn the walls of the new family chapel. She is fascinated by his talents and envious of his abilities and opportunities to paint to the glory of God. Soon her love of art and her lively independence are luring her into closer involvement with all sorts of taboo areas of life. On excursions into the streets of night-time Florence she observes a terrible evil stalking the city and witnesses the rise of the fiery young priest, Savanarola, who has set out to rid the city of vice, richness, even art itself. Alessandra must make crucial decisions about the shape of her adult life, as Florence itself must choose between the old ways of the luxury-loving Medicis and the asceticism of Savanorola. And through it all, there is the painter, whose love will change everything.

From the acclaimed author of The Birth of Venus and In the Company of the Courtesan comes a vibrant exploration of the Italian Renaissance through the character of Isabella d'Este, the first female art collector and patron of her time. Her famed collection has long since dispersed or been lost, but what remains is her correspondence - thousands of letters preserved in a deconsecrated church and convent in the archive of Mantua.'For the longest time after my death, those who claimed an interest in history showed little interest in me. Or indeed women like me. Nor did they seem to care much about the wonder of our city states: Mantua, Ferrara, Urbino. We may never have been as grand or powerful as Venice or Rome or Florence but our great age - this thing that is now so valued and trumpeted as the Renaissance - would have been a much lesser affair without us.'The Marchesa is Renaissance history at its most vivid, an immersive, multi-layered experience that mixes historical fiction with biography, scholarship and imagery, of both the people and the time. It is also a meditation on our attitude to history itself, challenging how far we can set aside our own values and certainties when it comes to understanding those who grew out of very different cultural soil.