Fire master and military explosives expert, Francis Quoynt, soldier rather than stateman, is plunged into an astonishing world of beauty and corruption. La Spada is a wealthy, stunning Italian city-state - the gateway of Europe. whoever controls its mountain passes also controls the flow of intelligence and much of the trade from the Middle East. As his mind disintegrates into fantastic obsessions, the Prince makes his treacherous illegitimate son his heir. Which thwarts the deadly ambition of his daughter, Sofia - the Principessa.
Sofia is young, seductive, wily, and recently widowed. Already a blooded player of politics, she could outdo Lucrezia Borgia in the lethal game of survival. As unpredictable as gunpowder, will she choose to seek Francis's heart, or his life? Or both?
AUTHOR'S NOTES
The Principessa was a painful birth but a happy delivery. I wanted to explore a 'bad' girl as a heroine, which also meant testing my own worse self - not a comfortable process if you're trying for honesty. Fortunately, I ended up in love with her. On other topics - I took great delight in the landscape of La Spada in Friuli, which is very like the Italian Dolomites where I have climbed. Francis's joy in the beauty and detail is mine. And I, too, have slept above those clanging, smelly cows. In setting my slightly off-the-wall story of dying princes, skull-duggery and fireworks in northern 17th c. Italy, I also enjoyed playing gently with a literary joke - in English plays of the Tudor and Jacobean periods, Italy was much used as the setting for dreadful deeds that 'could not possibly happen' in England. One of my research sources, for those who would like to increase their guile, was The Prince, by Machiavelli - which became Sofia's Bible of practical politics. And Francis surprised me by how much he 'grew up' when forced to turn con-man. Deciding where this new, still sexy, but now fully self-aware man goes next will be fascinating and challenging for me.
REVIEWS
'A stunning novel of history, passion and politics, as one young woman must try to survive in any way she can - by outwitting her father, brother, and the all-powerful Robert Cecil, chief advisor to James I.'
The Bookseller, October 2007