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Outstanding
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Daily Telegraph Lisa Hilton
[Dunant's] story blends beauty and brutality into an intimate and thrilling portrait of her age.
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Rich, rewarding and wonderfully well-crafted entertainment.
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Outstanding
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Library Journal Wendy Bethel
The portrait that Dunant paints of Renaissance Venice sparkles like light through Murano glass, and the story herein is perfect in its portrayal of human imperfection. [1 Jan 2006, p. 95]
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Dunant's characters... are irresistible throughout their shifting fortunes.
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Outstanding
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Booklist Mary Ellen Quinn
Dunant is the kind of writer a reader will follow anywhere, trusting completely in her ability both to bring a time and place to life and to tell an enthralling story. [15 Oct 2005, p. 5]
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Favorable
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The Guardian Virginia Rounding
It feels authentic, and in a work of imaginative fiction that is what counts.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Rebecca Seal
Dunant excels at creating a page-turner and her narrative has the ring of historical accuracy.
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Favorable
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The New Yorker
Dunant presents a lively and detailed acccount of the glimmering palaces and murky alleys of Renaissance Venice, and examines the way the city's clerics and prostitutes alike are bound by its peculiar dynamic of opulence and restraint.
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Favorable
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Houston Chronicle Charles Matthews
Reading a historical novel for the history is like eating chocolate for the antioxidants. The history and the antioxidants are just fringe benefits--the true appeal lies elsewhere. In this case, it lies in a good story well told.
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Favorable
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Salon Laura Miller
When you think you know where the story's going, Dunant takes a sharp left turn and heads for parts unknown without ever resorting to implausibility or wishful thinking. (This is not a story for those who like unqualified happy endings.)
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Favorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
Ms. Dunant does a remarkably successful job of drawing out the best and most appetizing parts of her material, and of breathing life into the unlikely best-friend bond at the book's center.
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Favorable
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Boston Globe Diane White
Dunant's research informs every line, but it never overwhelms her spellbinding writing.
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Favorable
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USA Today Deirdre Donahue
With Valentine's Day upon us, this is the rare novel that lovers of both sexes might enjoy.
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Favorable
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Washington Post Philippa Stockley
This amiable, intelligent story ambles along pretty much of its own accord, toward a good surprise at the end.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
If you like your escapism laced with earthy historical detail and overripe metaphors, you could do worse than Sarah Dunant's follow-up to her 2004 best-seller, The Birth of Venus.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Erica Jong
Dunant can write. She occasionally startles with a phrase like "the rancid smell of magic in her hair" or "love: the only other ailment fatal to a courtesan." But she can also mar her narrative with a modern phrase whose cadences jar.
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Mixed
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Daily Telegraph
Saucy without being addle-brained; jaundiced without being sour. But it lacks a driving plot and the energy often flags in an episodic structure.
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