History from a Woman's Perspective- A Book Blog

The Orphan of Florence Author: Jeanne Kalogridis Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin Release Date: 2017 Pages: 336 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review Synopsis: In this irresistible historical novel set in the turbulent world of the Medicis, a young woman finds herself driven from pick-pocketing to espionage when she meets a mysterious man.      Giulia has been an orphan all her life. Raised in Florence's famous Ospedale degli Innocenti, her probing questions and insubordinate behavior made her an unwelcome presence, and at the age of fifteen, she was given an awful choice: become a nun, or be married off to a man she didn't love. She chose neither, and after refusing an elderly suitor, Giulia escaped onto the streets of Florence.      Now, after spending two years as a successful pickpocket, an old man catches her about to make off with his purse, and rather than having her ca...

I, Mona Lisa: A Novel Author: Jeanne Kalogridis Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin Release Date: 2006 Pages: 544 Source: Personal Collection Synopsis: "My name is Lisa di Antonio Gherardini Giocondo, though to acquaintances, I am known simply as Madonna Lisa.  My story begins not with my birth but a murder, committed the year before I was born."     Florence, April 1478: The handsome Giuliano de' Medici is brutally assassinated in Florence's magnificent Duomo. The shock of the murder ripples throughout the great city, from the most renowned artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to a wealthy wool merchant and his extraordinarily beautiful daughter, Madonna Lisa.      More than a decade later, Florence falls under the dark spell of the preacher Savonarola, a fanatic who burns paintings and books as easily as he sends men to their deaths.  Lisa, now grown into an alluring woman, captures the heart of Giuliano'...