Sarah Dunant Boeken

Florence, 1528. Het is de tijd van de Medici, overdadige luxe, verblindende kunst en seksuele uitspattingen. Maar ook de tijd van de hellepreken van de religieuze fanaticus Savonarola en de toenemende macht van de weelde- en nachtpolitie. De vader van de jonge Alessandra, een rijke stoffenhandelaar, besluit een schilder in huis te nemen om de familiekapel in het palazzo te beschilderen. Een belangrijk moment, dat bepalend zal zijn voor de toekomst van Allesandra, die in het geheim haar hart verpand heeft aan de schilderkunst. Volgens familiegewoonte wordt zij uitgehuwelijkt. Zij trouwt met Cristoforo, de beste vriend van haar broer Tomaso. Maar tijdens het huwelijk blijkt dat Cristoforo een relatie met haar broer onderhoudt. Ondanks de schok en het gevoel bedrogen te zijn door haar familie besluit zij toch bij hem te blijven. De onverwachte vrijheid die haar als getrouwde vrouw ten deel valt, grijpt zij met beide handen aan. Ze pakt haar oude passie, het schilderen, weer op en ontmoet opnieuw de jonge schilder uit haar jeugd, Michelangelo. Er ontwikkelt zich een liefdesrelatie die dramatische gevolgen heeft.

De mysterieuze verdwijning van een alleenstaande moeder leidt tot vele speculaties: is ze ontvoerd of heeft ze misschien een nieuwe vriend?

The BP Portrait Award, now in its nineteenth year, is a popular fixture on the summer calendar, and is the leading showcase for artists specializing in portraiture. The competition is open to all artists aged eighteen and over from around the world. The 2008 award received 1,600 entrants, all competing for the main prize of GBP25,000 and a possible commission.

'Respectable people don't go to Jamaica Inn... they're afraid'. When her mother dies, Mary Yellan goes to live with her aunt and uncle at Jamaica Inn. Strange things happen there at night. Mary is not easily frightened but she slowly discovers that her uncle is involved in something more terrible than she had ever imagined

Sarah Dunant's sparkling novel, In the Name of the Family, is girded by a keen political intelligence and a stunning feel for Italy in the years around 1500 Lauro Martines, Emeritus Professor off European history at University of California and one of world's foremost authorities on the Italian Renaissance

1527. While the Papal city of Rome burns - brutally sacked by an invading army including Protestant heretics - two of her most interesting and wily citizens slip away, their stomachs churning on the jewels they have swallowed as the enemy breaks down their doors. Though almost as damaged as their beloved city, Fiammetta Bianchini and Bucino Teodoldi - a fabulous courtesan and her dwarf companion - are already planning their future. They head for the shimmering beauty of Venice, a honey pot of wealth and trade where they start to rebuild their business. As a partnership they are invincible: Bucino, clever with a sharp eye and a wicked tongue and Fiammetta, beautiful and shrewd, trained from birth to charm, entertain and satisfy men who have the money to support her. Venice, however, is a city which holds its own temptations. From the admiring Turk in search of human novelties for his Sultan's court, to the searing passion of a young lover who wants more than his allotted nights. But the greatest challenge comes from a young blind woman, a purveyor of health and beauty, who insinuates her way into their lives with devastating consequences for them all.

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.

A brother dead; a cousin executed; imprisonment in the Tower--in the aftermath of Edward VI's demise England is in turmoil and young Elizabeth's position is precarious. But while she is prey to the Queen's jealous suspicions, Queen Mary is fading; while Elizabeth is twenty and healthy. The country looks to the young princess for its future. Imperious, high spirited, fighting for her life, Elizabeth already shows the diplomacy, the baffling changes of mood, and the power to win men's devotion for which she would be famous as Queen. This is the second book in the series started in Queen Bess.

Santa Catarina, a convent near Venice, is home to over one hundred women in 1567. But with powerful forces for change raging outside the convent, and with the world of the women within threatened by a new arrival, passions, hysteria, and conflict will come to threaten their very survival.

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.