THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT by Maggie O'Farrell

 

5.5 💗

Available now

Historical Novel

Maggie O'Farrell

Published September 6th 2022

Synopsis

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

My view 

Do you enjoy beautiful prose? Immersive narration? Maggie O'Farrell will transport you into Duchess Lucrezia d'Medici's Renaissance world with all its beauty and ill-fated marriage.

I truly enjoyed this historical novel.

Read it I highly recommend it.

The tragic Duchess Lucrezia d' Medici, 16 years old.

HAMNET by Maggie O'Farrell

 

5.5

Knopf

Available now

About

In 1580’s England, during the Black Plague a young Latin tutor falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman in this “exceptional historical novel” (The New Yorker) and best-selling winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a tender and unforgettable re-imagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time, Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.