Virago Sacred Hearts Дюнан Сара

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

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

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

Сара Уотерс — современный классик, «автор настолько блестящий, что читатели готовы верить каждому ее слову» (Daily Mail) — трижды попадала в шорт-лист Букеровской премии, в том числе и с романом, предлагающимся вашему вниманию. Эта история с привидениями, в которой слышны отголоски классических книг Диккенса и Эдгара По, Генри Джеймса и Ширли Джексон, Агаты Кристи и Дафны Дюморье, разворачивается в обветшалой усадьбе Хандредс-Холл, претерпевающей не лучшие времена: изысканный парк зарос, половина комнат законсервированы, гостей приходится принимать в цокольном этаже, и вообще быть аристократом невыгодно. Что до действующих лиц, то предоставим слово автору: «Стареющая миссис Айрес, пленница ускользающего былого стиля жизни, ее почти безнадежно незамужняя дочь и израненный на войне сын