The Rome Affair

Author: Karen Swan
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1760553468
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 443

Book Description
The glamorous capital city of Italy is brought to startling life in The Rome Affair, a compelling summer novel by Karen Swan. 1974 and Elena Damiani lives a gilded life. Born to wealth and a noted beauty, no door is closed to her, no man can resist her. At twenty-six, she is already onto her third husband when she meets her love match. But he is the one man she can never have, and all the beauty and money in the world can't change it. 2017 and Francesca Hackett is living la dolce vita in Rome, leading tourist groups around the Eternal City and forgetting the ghosts she left behind in London. When she finds a stolen designer handbag in her dustbin and returns it, she is brought into the orbit of her grand neighbour who lives across the piazza - famed socialite Viscontessa Elena dei Damiani Pignatelli della Mirandola. Though the purse is stolen, Elena greets the return of the bag with exultation for it contains an unopened letter written by her husband on his deathbed, twelve years earlier. Mutually intrigued by each other, the two women agree to collaborate on a project, with Cesca interviewing Elena for her memoirs. As summer unfurls, Elena tells her sensational stories, leaving Cesca in her thrall. But when a priceless diamond ring found in an ancient tunnel below the city streets is ascribed to Elena, Cesca begins to suspect a shocking secret at the heart of Elena's life.

She Seduced Me

Author: Mark Tedesco
Publisher: Dixi Books
ISBN: 1913680045
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Book Description
“I resisted, but she drew me back. I stayed away, but she beckoned me. I distanced myself, but she haunted me. I even rejected her but she did not abandon me...” This work of nonfiction is divided into chapters in which the reader experiences aspects of art, culture, history and the present through the eyes of the writer and of the inhabitants of Rome, past and present. Show Less She Seduced Me is that rare book in which the reader becomes part of a magical world in which places, monuments and artists come alive through their stories. In this case, however, that world is Rome and the reader becomes a participant in the ebb and flow of the city and gains insight into why so many have fallen in love with Rome despite its faults. The journey commences with the reader accompanying the author who, standing in front of Michelangelo’s Moses statue, mouth agape, almost hears the artist scream at his creation: “Speak!” From this an odyssey of wonder begins: what is the story behind the Trevi fountain, behind that rock in the middle of the Roman Forum, behind all those priests and nuns everywhere, behind everything one stumbles upon, wonders about and takes selfies in front of? The quest is to uncover those stories. Author and reader continue to explore the life in the piazzas, experience camaraderie with street performers, see history through all the senses, get lost in Rome, observe Americans and foreigners, discover unique places to eat, speak with Romans, explore the houses of Nero, Augustus and Livia, encounter Caravaggio and chats with expats. This work is a virtual tour through a magical city that educates and enthralls.

Mistress of Rome

Author: Kate Quinn
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101186631
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Book Description
The first in an unforgettable historical saga from the New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network and The Diamond Eye. “So gripping, your hands are glued to the book, and so vivid it burns itself into your mind’s eye and stays with you long after you turn the final page.”—Diana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author First-century Rome: One young woman will hold the fate of an empire in her hands. Thea, a captive from Judaea, is a clever and determined survivor hiding behind a slave’s docile mask. Purchased as a toy for the spoiled heiress Lepida Pollia, Thea evades her mistress’s spite and hones a secret passion for music. But when Thea wins the love of Rome’s newest and most savage gladiator and dares to dream of a better life, the jealous Lepida tears the lovers apart and casts Thea out. Rome offers many ways for the resourceful to survive, and Thea remakes herself as a singer for the Eternal ’City’s glittering aristocrats. As she struggles for success and independence, her nightingale voice attracts a dangerous new admirer: the Emperor himself. But the passions of an all-powerful man come with a heavy price, and Thea finds herself fighting for both her soul and her destiny. Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of Rome’s most powerful man lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor’s mistress.

The Domenichino Affair

Author: Elizabeth Cropper
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300109146
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Book Description
Ten years after completing his work The Last Communion of Saint Jerome, Bolognese painter Domenichino was accused by his rival Giovanni Lanfranco of stealing the idea for the painting from an altarpiece crafted by Lanfranco’s teacher, Agostino Carracci. The resulting scandal reverberated through the centuries, drawing responses by artists and critics from Poussin and Malvasia to Fuseli and Delacroix.Why was Domenichino attacked in this way when other related paintings--including Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin and Perugino’s painting of the same subject--aroused no such negative response? In this fast-paced book, Elizabeth Cropper investigates the Domenichino affair and addresses the perennial debate regarding the precise nature of originality and of imitation. She offers close readings of the paintings involved in the story, detailed analysis of attitudes toward imitation, emulation, and plagiarism, and a fascinating discussion of what Domenichino’s plight signifies in art history.

Murder and Media in the New Rome

Author: Thomas Simpson
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This book explores a sensational crime and trial that took place in Rome in the late 1870s, when the bloody killing of a war hero triggered a national spectacle. A young southern wife’s murder of her impotent soldier husband exploded into the first great “media circus” in the new nation of Italy. The trial of the widow and her acrobat lover shocked the young nation not only with its gruesome details, but also because masses of women flocked to the court, took sides and heatedly reacted to testimony, as a new generation of newspapers exploited the scandal to enchant an untapped readership. Largely ignored by historians, the Fadda Affair, as it was called, crucially shaped the young nation’s self-image, but it still resists reduction to historiographical formula, even as its raucous messiness presages the postmodern centrality of performance and the displacement of substance by sensation.

Antony & Cleopatra

Author: Patricia Southern
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
ISBN: 1445608871
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Book Description
The tragic love affair of Marc Antony and Cleopatra is a staple of popular ancient history, immortalised by Shakespeare and Hollywood and mercilessly parodied in Carry on Cleo.

Mistress of the Vatican

Author: Eleanor Herman
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006182741X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
Eleanor Herman, the talented author of the New York Times bestselling Sex with Kings and Sex with the Queen goes behind the sacred doors of the Catholic Church in Mistress of the Vatican, a scintillating biography of a powerful yet little-known woman whose remarkable story is ripe with secrets, sex, passion, and ambition. For almost four centuries this astonishing story of a woman’s absolute power over the Vatican has been successfully buried—until now.

The Summer Without You

Author: Karen Swan
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1447255208
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 576

Book Description
Rowena Tipton isn’t looking for a new life, just a new adventure, something to while away the months as her long-term boyfriend presses pause on their relationship before they become engaged. But when a chance encounter at a New York wedding leads to an audition for a coveted houseshare in The Hamptons – Manhattan’s elite beach scene – suddenly a new life is exactly what she’s got. Stretching before her is a summer with three eclectic housemates, long days on white sand ocean beaches and parties on gilded tennis courts. But high rewards bring high stakes and Rowena soon finds herself caught in the crossfire of a vicious intimidation campaign. Alone for the first time in her adult life, she has no-one to turn to but a stranger who is everything she doesn’t want - but possibly everything she needs. A gorgeously escapist summer read from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Christmas at Tiffany's Rowena Tipton isn’t looking for a new life, just a new adventure, something to while away the months as her long-term boyfriend presses pause on their relationship before they become engaged. But when a chance encounter at a New York wedding leads to an audition for a coveted houseshare in The Hamptons – Manhattan’s elite beach scene – suddenly a new life is exactly what she’s got. Stretching before her is a summer with three eclectic housemates, long days on white sand ocean beaches and parties on gilded tennis courts. But high rewards bring high stakes and Rowena soon finds herself caught in the crossfire of a vicious intimidation campaign. Alone for the first time in her adult life, she has no-one to turn to but a stranger who is everything she doesn’t want - but possibly everything she needs. A gorgeously escapist summer read from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Christmas at Tiffany's

The Rome Affair

Author: Laura Caldwell
Publisher: MIRA
ISBN: 1552547833
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Book Description
It was an affair...to regret. Rachel Blakely's charmed life is significantly tarnished after her husband Nick's infidelity, but she wants to give her marriage a second chance. Then a business trip to sun-drenched Rome with her best girlfriend Kit leads to a night of passion with a stranger — a one-night stand meant to signify the end of a painful chapter in her life. Rachel returns home determined to put the past behind her, and at first life seems golden again. Nick is more loving than ever, and following his promotion to senior partner in a prestigious plastic surgery practice, the couple is welcomed into Chicago's high society, where beautiful people live beautiful lives. But there is a dark side...one that sends Rachel's life spiraling into a nightmare. It's clear everyone is guilty of something. But whose secrets will lead to murder?

The Rome Affair

Author: Karen Swan
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509838031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Last Summer, Karen Swan, the glamorous capital city of Italy is brought to startling life in The Rome Affair, a compelling story of love, life and long-held secrets. 1974. Elena Damiani lives a gilded life. Born to wealth and a noted beauty, no door is closed to her, no man can resist her. At twenty-six, she is already onto her third husband when she meets her love match. But he is the one man she can never have – and all the beauty and money in the world can't change it. 2017. Francesca Hackett is living la dolce vita in Rome, leading tourist groups around the Eternal City and forgetting the ghosts she left behind in London. When chance brings her into the orbit of her neighbour across the piazza – famed socialite Viscontessa Elena dei Damiani Pignatelli della Mirandola – the two women are intrigued by one another – and agree to collaborate on Elena's memoirs. As summer unfurls, Elena tells her sensational stories, leaving Cesca in her thrall. But when a priceless diamond ring, found in an ancient tunnel below the city streets, is ascribed to Elena, Cesca begins to suspect a shocking secret at the heart of Elena's life . . . 'Glittering jewels, designer labels galore and the most mouth-watering pizza in Rome make this a satisfying summer beach read' – Veronica Henry, Daily Express Enjoy more of Karen Swan's captivating seasonal novels with The Greek Escape and The Paris Secret.