Showing results for "Love" in Renaissance

1657. The youngest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, 18-year-old Frances is finding her place at England's new centre of power. Following the turmoil of Civil War, a fragile sense of stability has returned to the country. Her father has risen to the unprecedented position of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and Frances has found herself transported from her humble childhood home to the sumptuous palaces of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where she dreams of romance.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Tomorrow by Damian Dibben, read by George Blagden. Tomorrow tells the story of a 217-year-old dog and his search for his lost master. His adventures take him through the London Frost Fair, the strange court of King Charles I, the wars of the Spanish...

England, 1613. At the dazzling but brutal court of King James I, politician and philosopher Francis Bacon, the cleverest person in England, the inventor of the modern world, has a fight to survive. A life-threatening alliance of his enemies has formed around the king's exquisite but noxious lover, Carr. Bacon, always the outsider and the plotter, goes to his friend, James' neglected queen, and together they come up with a plan. 

The new novel from the Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Impossibility of Love and The Baroness. Tuscany, 1470: in the bright light of a new day, an artist is lying awake. He is thinking about a new painting, a fresco, that will shape his future, and echo down the centuries. In the 1920s...

In the castle at the heart of battle-scarred Elysia, Tessa Serafina di Acampora faces her wedding to Duka Yosef. She’s spent years building herself into a strategic advisor invaluable to the ailing leader of the nation, becoming a woman the world won’t forget. The betrothal should be a boon, a promise of the good life. But she can’t stop thinking of the other beautiful ladies of the court… Prema Nyssa, hero of Elysia who just ended their long war with Ermandi, finds herself dragged to Casteli Valoria to reap the rewards.

Kat Cooke's daughter, Alice, joins the court of Queen Mary I, where faith and power intertwine in dangerous ways. Alice supports the Catholic queen, but her heart is torn by her loyalty to the Protestant heir, Lady Elizabeth. Placed in a perilous position, she struggles to remain true to both royal sisters. As England trembles under religious division every friendship is suspect, every whisper may be treason. Alice is caught between two futures, one bound to Mary's fervent restoration of Catholicism and another determined by her relationship with the pragmatic Elizabeth.

The hardest times can build the strongest friendships County Donegal, Ireland, April 1845. Since following her heart and moving from her comfortable home in Scotland to the harsh mountainside of Ardtur, County Donegal, Hannah McGinley hasn’t had the easiest life. But surrounded by her two...

How could Caro love and hate the same man? How could she be foolish enough to harbour that love for years; to hide herself away from the world because of her embarrassment over her failure to be loved in return? Because she is a fool...Yet Rob Marlow sees not that but courage in her, and this beautiful young man, who gives her back the strength she’s lost, is someone she longs to cling to for the physical comfort she has missed since the end of her marriage.

A past scandal and a broken heart have left Lady Caroline Kilbride hiding away from the world, in the safety of her brother’s home. But when a devilishly handsome newcomer arrives for the summer, she finds herself surprisingly drawn to him. Rob Marlow, a man determined to carve his own path in life, never expected to be intrigued by his brother-in-law’s dependent sister. Yet in Caro he sees courage, intelligence and a spark of the woman she once was.

Carlo meets the famed nun, Sister Giulia di Marco, and her confessor, Father Aniello Arcieri, a few years later, while restoring an altarpiece in a church. The charismatic pair gradually draw the lonely artist into their scandalous Confraternity of Carnal Charity, whose wealthy noble acolytes believe divine glory can be achieved through sexual ecstasy. Unable to continue living a lie, Carlo confesses a big secret to Sister Giulia. The crafty nun wastes no time assigning the novitiate a prominent role within the cult, which soon captures the attention of the Holy Inquisition....