City of Masks (Bloomsbury Educational Editions)

by Mary Hoffman (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2008

  $3.28

  Lucien is in bed seriously ill with cancer. So how can he simultaneously exist in full health in a strange city that looks oddly like Venice - and yet couldn't be more different? Lucien has arrived in Bellezza, ruled by the powerful Duchessa, but it is his method of travel that marks Lucien out. Through an innocent gift of a Venetian notebook, Lucien has become a member of the Stravaganti, travellers in time and place. He has entered a world thick with drama, colour, intrigue and danger for which he is ill-prepared.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $4.26

  Set in Talia, a parallel world very similar to 16th-century Italy, the narrative follows Lucien, who in our world is very ill. Given a marbled notebook to use as a diary, the notebook is the unexpected means that transports Lucien to this dangerous new world; a world that thrills to the delight of political intrigue and where a life can be snuffed out with a flash of a merlino blade. The city of Bellezza (Venice in our world) is astonishingly evoked, with a filmic eye to detail, from the sensuousness of silks and velvets, to the thrill and danger of assassination attempts both and foiled and successful. The world of Talia is unforgettably and convincingly real.