Most Popular Books by Sarah Dunant

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.

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.

Condemned by sixteenth-century demands for lucrative dowries in order to marry, young Serafina is ripped from an illicit love affair and confined in a Renaissance Italy convent, a situation against which she passionately rebels and reminds the convent''s doctor of her own unhappy early years. 200,000 first printing.

Before the Corleones, before the Lannisters, there were the Borgias. One of history’s notorious families comes to life in a captivating novel from the author of The Birth of Venus. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY COSMOPOLITAN (UK) AND THE TIMES (UK) “In the end, what’s a historical novelist’s obligation to the dead? Accuracy? Empathy? Justice? Or is it only to make them live again? Dunant pays these debts with a passion that makes me want to go straight out and read all her other books.”—Diana Gabaldon, The Washington Post Bestselling novelist Sarah Dunant has long been drawn to the high drama of Renaissance Italy: power, passion, beauty, brutality, and the ties of blood. With In the Name of the Family, she offers a thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia’s final years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccolò Machiavelli. It is 1502 and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, aged twenty-two—already three times married and a pawn in her father’s plans—is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in 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 increasingly erratic behavior, it is Lucrezia who must navigate the treacherous court of Urbino, her new home, and another challenging marriage to create her own place in history. Sarah Dunant again employs her remarkable gifts as a storyteller to bring to life the passionate men and women of the Borgia family, as well as the ever-compelling figure of Machiavelli, through whom the reader will experience one of the most fascinating—and doomed—dynasties of all time. “Enthralling . . . combines flawless historical scholarship with beguiling storytelling.”—The Guardian “Renaissance-rich details fill out the humanity of the Borgias, rendering them into the kind of relatable figures whom we would hope to discover behind the cold brilliance of The Prince.”—NPR “[Dunant] has an enviable command of this complex political scene, with its shifting alliances and subtle betrayals. . . . [She] has a special gift for attending to her female characters.”—The New York Times

Anna, a self-sufficient and reliable single mother, packs her bags one day for a short vacation to Italy. She leaves her beloved daughter at home in London with good friends. When Anna doesn’t return, everyone begins to make excuses, until the likelihood that she might not come back at all becomes chillingly clear. In this dazzling work of suspense, Sarah Dunant interweaves parallel narratives that are stretched taut with tension even as they raise difficult questions about love, trust, and accountability. We are challenged, unnerved, and ultimately exhilarated as Dunant redefines the boundaries of the psychological thriller.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS The New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Italian Renaissance novels—The Birth of Venus, In the Company of the Courtesan, and Sacred Hearts—has an exceptional talent for breathing life into history. Now Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to one of the world’s most intriguing and infamous families—the Borgias—in an engrossing work of literary fiction. By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and inside the Church. When Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia buys his way into the papacy as Alexander VI, he is defined not just by his wealth or his passionate love for his illegitimate children, but by his blood: He is a Spanish Pope in a city run by Italians. If the Borgias are to triumph, this charismatic, consummate politician with a huge appetite for life, women, and power must use papacy and family—in particular, his eldest son, Cesare, and his daughter Lucrezia—in order to succeed. Cesare, with a dazzlingly cold intelligence and an even colder soul, is his greatest—though increasingly unstable—weapon. Later immortalized in Machiavelli’s The Prince, he provides the energy and the muscle. Lucrezia, beloved by both men, is the prime dynastic tool. Twelve years old when the novel opens, hers is a journey through three marriages, and from childish innocence to painful experience, from pawn to political player. Stripping away the myths around the Borgias, Blood & Beauty is a majestic novel that breathes life into this astonishing family and celebrates the raw power of history itself: compelling, complex and relentless. Praise for Blood and Beauty “Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into fully rounded characters, brimming with life and lust.”—The New York Times Book Review “Like Hilary Mantel with her Cromwell trilogy, [Sarah] Dunant has scaled new heights by refashioning mythic figures according to contemporary literary taste. This intellectually satisfying historical saga, which offers blood and beauty certainly, but brains too, is surely the best thing she has done to date.”—The Miami Herald “Compelling female players have been a characteristic of Dunant’s earlier novels, and this new offering is no exception. . . . The members of this close-knit family emerge as dynamic characters, flawed but sympathetic, filled with fear and longing.”—The Seattle Times “The Machiavellian atmosphere—hedonism, lust, political intrigue—is magnetic. . . . Readers won’t want the era of Borgia rule to end.”—People (four stars)

Marla’s best friend, Elly, left England two years ago on a soul-searching trip through South America. Except for receiving a few postcards, Marla has not heard from her since. Then, Marla receives a strange letter from Elly begging her to fly to New York. But the person Marla meets at the airport is a very different woman from the strong, carefree friend she remembers. Elly, now well-dressed and thin, has acquired a park-view apartment, a house in the Hamptons, and a charismatic, manipulative, cocaine-smuggling boyfriend named Lenny. As Marla tries to free her friend from the dual addictions of love and cocaine, she unravels a story of seduction and power in Columbia and of desire and betrayal in California. Caught in a web of deceptions, the threat of violence mounting around them, Marla decides to take on Lenny and his empire. But Lenny–like the drug he peddles–has no intention of letting Elly go.

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ACCLAIMED ITALIAN RENAISSANCE NOVELS ''Blood & Beauty is a high-class, colourful Renaissance soap opera, and one that will leave readers itching for the next instalment'' S. J. PARRIS, OBSERVER ''Gripping . . . A must read'' DAILY MAIL ''Hugely enjoyable . . . Dunant triumphs'' CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN ''Wonderful . . . from a master of historical fiction'' THE TIMES By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched only by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and its Church. 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 wonderful novel - taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy'' MARY BEARD ''A fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos'' AMANDA FOREMAN ''Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled'' PAULA MCLAIN ''Brimming with life and lust'' NEW YORK TIMES ''Vividly alive . . . an intelligent and passionate book'' LUCY ATKINS, SUNDAY TIMES

A decade before her dazzling breakthrough novel, The Birth of Venus, author Sarah Dunant won Britain''s prestigious Silver Dagger award for Fatlands, a Hannah Wolfe mystery. In Fatlands, private investigator Hannah Wolfe, who’s independent though not invincible, idealistic but definitely not naive, has taken on one of the less glamorous jobs in the security world—chaperoning teenage rebel Mattie Shepherd around London. But Mattie’s father is paying Hannah lots of money—more than the job is worth, it seems. Or perhaps not. The girl’s father is on the Animal Liberation Front’s hit list. But why? When violence explodes, tearing the family apart, this is what Hannah must discover. Her obsession with the truth nearly kills her, wrecking her private life and dragging her into a vortex of lies and betrayal.

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.

This new deluxe eBook edition features more than eighty additional pages of exclusive, author-approved annotations throughout the text, which contain new illustrations and photographs, to enrich your reading experience. You can access the eBook annotations with a simple click or tap on your eReader via the convenient links. Access them as you read the novel or as supplemental material after finishing the entire story. There is also Random House Reader’s Circle bonus content, which is sure to inspire discussion at book clubs everywhere. 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 Florence palazzo. A child of the Renaissance with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the artist’s abilities. But Alessandra’s parents have made plans for their daughter, and she is soon married off to a wealthy, much older man. Meanwhile, the reign of the Medicis, with their love of luxury, learning, and dazzling art, is being threatened by the hellfire preaching and increasing brutality of the fundamentalist monk Savonarola and his reactionary followers. As the city shudders with violence and change, Alessandra must find her own way—and finally explore the passions she’s kept so long at bay. “Simply amazing, so brilliantly written . . . almost intolerably exciting at times, and at others, equally poignant.”—Antonia Fraser “A broad mural bursting with color, passion, and intrigue.”—People

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.

A decade before her dazzling breakthrough novel, The Birth of Venus, Silver Dagger Award-winning author Sarah Dunant won critical acclaim for her Hannah Wolfe crime novels. In Under My Skin, private investigator Hannah Wolfe''s cushy new assignment takes her to the sumptuous Castle Dean health spa. While being plucked, crimped, steamed, and oiled, Hannah is ideally placed to probe some reported cases of sabotage -- fish in the Jacuzzi and steel nails in the massage heads. But spa owner Olivia Marchant has other problems besides sabotage. Someone is threatening her husband, Maurice, one of London''s leading cosmetic surgeons and the man responsible for reconstructing many of the world''s rich and famous. In a culture where no one wants to grow old and everyone seems to believe in the power of the knife, Hannah feels like an alien visitor. People will do anything in the name of beauty -- perhaps even commit murder.

Op een dag pakt Anna haar koffers zonder iemand te vertellen waarom en waarheen ze vertrekt. Ze zegt alleen dat ze niet lang weg zal blijven. Ze laat haar dochtertje Lily van zes thuis achter in de goede handen van Paul, een oude vriend. Als Anna langer wegblijft dan verwacht weet iedereen aanvankelijk wel een argument te bedenken. Maar de tijd verstrijkt en geleidelijk aan sijpelt de angstige gedachte door dat Anna wellicht niet meer terugkomt. Wat bezielt een geslaagde vrouw als Anna om alles, haar geliefde dochtertje, haar carrière, zomaar achter te laten en naar Italië te gaan. Deze razendknappe thriller van Sarah Dunant doet meer dan welk boek ook een beroep op onze verbeelding.

«Gli splendidi palazzi e le viuzze della Venezia del Rinascimento, dove ecclesiastici e prostitute si ritrovano insieme nell’opulenza e nelle restrizioni»._x000D_ New Yorker_x000D_ _x000D_ «Bellezza e brutalità nell’eccitante ritratto di un’epoca»._x000D_ Sunday Telegraph_x000D_ _x000D_ «Non vi è guida migliore di Sarah Dunant al Rinascimento italiano. Un romanzo avvincente che dona al lettore un piacere incomparabile»._x000D_ Daily Mail_x000D_ _x000D_ «La padronanza, il ritmo e l’istinto della Dunant sono impeccabili»._x000D_ The Financial Times

Alessandra Cecchi non ha ancora compiuto quindici anni quando suo padre, un ricco mercante di stoffe, fa ritorno da un viaggio nel nord dell’Europa portando con sé un giovane pittore incaricato di affrescare la cappella del loro palazzo fiorentino. Figlia del Rinascimento, Alessandra è più incline agli studi che ai soliti doveri di una ragazza di buona famiglia. Inoltre, coltiva una passione per il disegno che poco si addice a una giovane donna. L’incontro con il pittore fiammingo accende in lei il desiderio di apprendere le tecniche della creazione artistica e, insieme, la curiosità nei confronti del ragazzo dai lunghi capelli scuri. Fra Alessandra e il pittore nasce un’intensa attrazione, avversata dalla madre della ragazza, che la sorveglia con sguardo d’aquila. Intanto Firenze assiste alla morte di Lorenzo de’ Medici e precipita in un baratro di caos e rovina: mentre l’esercito francese minaccia l’invasione, un frate domenicano di nome Girolamo Savonarola si scaglia contro il dilagare del vizio e profetizza terribili castighi. In un’atmosfera sempre più cupa, Alessandra è costretta a rinunciare ai sogni e ad accettare il matrimonio con un uomo maturo, colto e raffinato, Cristoforo Langella, che le promette una libertà non comune per una donna del suo tempo. Il destino, tuttavia, le riserverà nuove drammatiche prove.

Rom, im August 1492. Schon am frühen Morgen ächzt die Stadt unter der Gluthitze des Sommers. Der Lärm in der engen Gasse lässt Lucrezia aus dem Schlaf fahren. Kann es wahr sein, was der Bote schreit? Ihr Vater, Rodrigo Borgia, der neue Papst? Die Nachricht stellt Lucrezias Leben und das ihrer drei Brüder auf den Kopf: Plötzlich sind sie die mächtigste Familie der Stadt, und das zwölfjährige Mädchen muss in Windeseile erwachsen werden. Denn ihr ehrgeiziger Vater weiß nur zu genau, dass die Hand seiner Tochter mehr wert ist als alle italienischen Ländereien zusammen, und dann ist da noch ihr Bruder Cesare, der seine schöne Schwester mehr liebt als erlaubt ... Mit Meisterhand öffnet Sarah Dunant die kupferbeschlagenen Türen des Palastes der Borgia, schlägt die schweren Brokatvorhänge beiseite und zeichnet den Aufstieg einer Familie in einer schillernd-verhängnisvollen Welt, in der es nur um eines geht: der Leidenschaft zu frönen und die Macht zu bewahren.

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?

1570 in the Italian city of Ferrara, and the convent of Santa Caterina is filled with noble women who are married to Christ because many cannot find husbands outside. Enter sixteen-year-old Serafina, ripped by her family from an illicit love affair, howling with rage and hormones and determined to escape. While on the other side of the great walls, counter-reformation forces in the Church are pushing for change, inside, Serafina''s spirit and defiance ignite a fire that threatens to engulf the whole convent. SACRED HEARTS is a novel about power, creativity and passion - both of the body and of the soul. Hidden history brought alive by a wonderful storyteller, renowned for her Italian Renaissance novels.