FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ACCLAIMED ITALIAN RENAISSANCE NOVELS
‘Blood & Beauty is a high-class, colourful Renaissance soap opera, and one that will leave readers itching for the next instalment’ S. J. PARRIS, OBSERVER
‘Gripping . . . A must read’ DAILY MAIL
‘Hugely enjoyable . . . Dunant triumphs’ CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN
‘Wonderful . . . from a master of historical fiction’ THE TIMES
By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched only by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and its Church. 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.
‘A wonderful novel – taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy’ MARY BEARD
‘A fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos’ AMANDA FOREMAN
‘Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled’ PAULA MCLAIN
‘Brimming with life and lust’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Vividly alive . . . an intelligent and passionate book’ LUCY ATKINS, SUNDAY TIMES
‘Blood & Beauty is a high-class, colourful Renaissance soap opera, and one that will leave readers itching for the next instalment’ S. J. PARRIS, OBSERVER
‘Gripping . . . A must read’ DAILY MAIL
‘Hugely enjoyable . . . Dunant triumphs’ CHRISTOBEL KENT, GUARDIAN
‘Wonderful . . . from a master of historical fiction’ THE TIMES
By the end of the fifteenth century, the beauty and creativity of Italy is matched only by its brutality and corruption, nowhere more than in Rome and its Church. 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.
‘A wonderful novel – taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy’ MARY BEARD
‘A fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos’ AMANDA FOREMAN
‘Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled’ PAULA MCLAIN
‘Brimming with life and lust’ NEW YORK TIMES
‘Vividly alive . . . an intelligent and passionate book’ LUCY ATKINS, SUNDAY TIMES
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Reviews
Gripping . . . a must read for anyone interested in the period, and for those who simply enjoy intelligent historical fiction
What a marvellous feast of vices and desires Sarah Dunant gives us in Blood & Beauty - lust and ambition, passion and power, destiny born and bought. The Borgias are arguably the most intriguing and ruthless family in all of history, and Dunant brings them ravishingly, bristlingly to life. Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled.
The pre-eminent novelist of Renaissance Italy . . . Blood & Beauty is a high-class, colourful Renaissance soap opera, and one that will leave readers itching for the next instalment
Blood & Beauty is a fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos. Dunant opens a window into the extraordinary machinations and skullduggery of the Borgias and provides us with a richness of description that beautifully locates them within their own time
A wonderful novel - taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy. Part of me was happily lost in the time travel, part of me repeatedly struck by how vividly ancient Rome met modern Rome, and how the city of history came to life
Wonderful . . . from a master of historical fiction . . . an ambitious, thrilling read from a novelist at the height of her powers. The Borgias leap from the page . . . the book offers total immersion in an alien Rome . . . A comparison to Wolf Hall is not out of place here
Blood & Beauty is a fascinating read full of vivid detail and human pathos. Dunant opens a window into the extraordinary machinations and skullduggery of the Borgias and provides us with a richness of description that beautifully locates them within their own time.
A wonderful novel - taking you deep into the world of Renaissance passion and the Renaissance papacy. Part of me was happily lost in the time travel, part of me repeatedly struck by how vividly ancient Rome met modern Rome, and how the city of history came to life.
This is Dunant's fourth Renaissance novel and she is in her element . . . She brings 15th century Italian cities vividly alive - the lawlessness and violence, the diseased and damaged bodies, the debauchery and corpses . . . an intelligent and passionate book
An ambitious, thrilling read from a novelist at the height of her powers. The Borgias leap from the page . . . the book offers total immersion in an alien Rome
Compelling female players have been a characteristic of Dunant's earlier novels, and this new offering is no exception. . . . The members of this close-knit family emerge as dynamic characters, flawed but sympathetic, filled with fear and longing
What a marvellous feast of vices and desires Sarah Dunant gives us in Blood & Beauty - lust and ambition, passion and power, destiny born and bought. The Borgias are arguably the most intriguing and ruthless family in all of history, and Dunant brings them ravishingly, bristlingly to life. Absolutely convincing on every page. I was enthralled
Like Hilary Mantel with her Cromwell trilogy, Dunant has scaled new heights by refashioning mythic figures according to contemporary literary taste. This intellectually satisfying historical saga, which offers blood and beauty certainly, but brains too, is surely the best thing she has done to date
Hugely enjoyable . . . From the outset Dunant takes possession of her sprawling, unwieldy material. She sets up a resonant dynamic between the political - the dangerous machinations of the papal conclave - and the domestic . . . it is in her asides that Dunant triumphs, like all good novelists: in a deft, shrewd, precise use of killer detail . . . it is difficult not to look forward to the next ride on an old-fashioned rollercoaster of a story
Just as Mantel humanized and, to an extent, rehabilitated the brilliant, villainous Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry VIII, Dunant transforms the blackhearted Borgias and the conniving courtiers and cardinals of Renaissance Europe into fully rounded characters, brimming with life and lust . . . In Blood and Beauty, Dunant illuminates the darkened narrative of the Borgia record, reviving stained glass with fresh light, refreshing the brilliance of the gold and blue panes history has marred without dulling the blood-red that glows everywhere around them
The Machiavellian atmosphere - hedonism, lust, political intrigue - is magnetic . . . Readers won't want the era of Borgia rule to end
Dazzling . . . a triumph on an epic scale . . . filled with rich detail and page-turning drama