Either I have gotten older, or this series has lost a bit of themselves. Much of it seemed quite rushed, and some passages of the book has a problem of involving me emotionally.Many parts also seem to require more suspension of disbelief than before. It all seem less well thought through. Like I'...
This was easily the worst book in the series. The pacing was really off; it was like the author had tried to cram too much into the story and then had to cut half of it out. Lots of hints of character and/or story progression were dropped here and there, but then they went nowhere and were never ...
I remember a friend recommended me this book, or well this series of books, a while ago because they said it was different and that it put together history and present times together. And I admit, that after reading it, it was a little interesting because it seemed to make you think about what yo...
Sky stepped out into the sunshine, blinking, still holding the bottle, and a black man, robed like the others, took him by the arm and whispered, 'God be praised, it has found you!'Everything changes for Sky when he finds a perfume bottle that whiskes him away to the city of Giglia, an ancient ci...
The award-winning author of the Stravaganza series has done it again with this atmospheric adventure set in Renaissance Italy. Sixteen-year-old Silvano da Montacuto has wealth, good looks, and a new hawk-but none of these can save him when his bloody dagger is found near a dead body. For his own ...
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE A Merlin for a Lady The Baronessa Margarethe da Montacuto was in her little parlour when the sound of running feet and excited barking reached her ears. Perhaps it is another message from Silvano, she thought, jumping up and dropping her grospoint. But it was better than a mess...
In mid-afternoon he phoned Eva again.‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ she asked as soon as she heard his voice.‘Yes, it has. But it was so extraordinary I don’t know if even you will believe it.’‘Try me,’ said Eva.‘Very well. But, please, whatever you say, don’t try to tell me it was a dream.’T...
It’s odd, when so much is vivid in my memory about the time before and after, but in those first few months after the boy was born that the world would call Davide di Antonello de’ Altobiondi I lost all sense of myself. I was the stonecutter who went to work in the bottega every day. I was the ar...
CHAPTER NINETEEN Love Tokens Everything changed for Elinor with Huguet’s arrival. Up until then, she had been able to feel that – apart from some anxious hours before they left Saint-Jacques and the shock of seeing Iseut fire her own castle – the war in the south had not really touched her. ...
He was standing with William Dethridge outside the Ducal palace and the old Stravagante linked arms with him and the two of them shouted ‘Viva la Duchessa!’ till they were hoarse. Luciano had completely forgotten about his cancer. There was no way they could get to their f...
School was bad enough. There didn’t seem to be a single sixth former without a hangover and some had called in sick. ‘Thank goodness Guy Fawkes’ Night is on a Saturday this year,’ said Jan Wood in the staffroom. ‘Or we’d have all this to go through again. It’s like teaching eighteen bowls of cold...