A novel history of the magnificent Isabella d’Este. Sarah Dunant turns her discerning eye to the foremost female art collector and patron of the Renaissance — Isabella d’Este, the Marchesa of Mantua — in a bold, new history that blends fiction with biography and art.

A thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia’s doomed years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli.

A Times Best Historical Fiction Book of the Year

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.

1570 in the Italian city of Ferrara. Sixteen-year-old Serafina is ripped by her family from an illicit love affair and forced into the convent of Santa Caterina, renowned for its superb music. Serafina’s one weapon is her glorious voice, but she refuses to sing.

Sarah Dunant’s epic novel of sixteenth-century Renaissance Italy is a story about the sins of pleasure and the pleasures of sin, an intoxicating mix of fact and fiction, and a dazzling portrait of one of the world’s greatest cities at its most potent moment in history.

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.

Anna packs her bags one day without telling anyone where and why she is going – just that she’ll be back soon. Her thoughts as she boards a plane, are that this journey will give her time to think about her life – as a woman hitting forty, a journalist and a single mother.

Terrifying, dark and bold, Sarah Dunant’s breakthrough psychological thriller transcends genres and audiences; it crosses all boundaries, encroaching on the darker side of sex and fantasy, male and female.

Obsession, betrayal and revenge twist into an ever-tightening knot in this tense psychological tale.