Laurel Corona

In glittering 18th-century Venice, music and love are prized above all else--and for two sisters coming of age, the city's passions blend in intoxicating ways. Chiaretta and Maddalena are as different as night and day. The two sisters were abandoned as babies on the steps of the Ospedale della Pietß, Venice's world-famous foundling hospital and musical academy. High-spirited and rebellious, Chiaretta marries into a great aristocratic Venetian family and eventually becomes one of the most powerful women in Venice. Maddalena becomes a violin virtuoso and Antonio Vivaldi's muse. The Four Seasons is a rich, literary imagination of the world of 18th-century Venice and the lives and loves of two extraordinary women. Praise for THE FOUR SEASONS "Pop Vivaldi's masterpiece into the CD player, brew a pot of tea, and prepare to relinquish the rest of your afternoon. Corona brings Venice and Vivaldi to life, delivering a stirring story of love, ambition, and music that will keep you reading long after the last note of the concerto has ended." --Lauren Willig, author of The Secret History of the Pink Carnation "Corona does a magnificent job of showing us the violent contradictions of life in 18th-century Venice, through the eyes of two musically gifted orphan sisters. Their relationships with music and particularly with the complex, enigmatic figure of Antonio Vivaldi are sensitively explored. This novel resists the easy clich and really succeeds in drawing a world that is both panoramic and intimate." --Susanne Dunlap, author of Liszt's Kiss "Music and the dangerous, exquisite world of 18th-century Venice form the setting of this poetic, sensual story of two orphaned sisters. The Four Seasons is a beautifully written addition to the handful of fascinating novels about women and the arts in this most intriguing of cities." --Stephanie Cowell, author of Marrying Mozart "Laurel Corona's The Four Seasons is a poignant tale of two sisters, layered exquisitely over the exotic world of brilliant priest/composer Vivaldi and his 18th-century Venice. The result: a vibrant crescendo of hearts and history." --Karen Harper, author of The Last Boleyn and The First Princess of Wales "I've never been to Venice, played a violin, or for that matter carried a tune, but after reading The Four Seasons I feel that I've experienced all three, and through them come to a better understanding of the many forms love takes. Brava, Laurel Corona." --Sally Gunning, author of The Widow's War and Bound

A Novel of Vivaldi's Venice

The Four Seasons

A sweeping story of 1492 Spain, exploring how what we know about the world shapes our map of life Valencia, 1492. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issue an order expelling all Jews who refuse to convert to Christianity. Amalia Cresques, daughter of a Jewish mapmaker whose services were so valuable that his faith had been ignored, can no longer evade the throne. She must leave her beloved atlas, her house, her country, forever. As Amalia remembers her past, living as a converso, hiding her faith, she must decide whether to risk the wrath of the Inquisition or relinquish what's left of her true life. A mesmerizing saga about faith, family and Jewish identity.

Mapmaker's Daughter

The award-winning author of "The Four Seasons" retells "The Odyssey" from thepoint of view of Odysseus's and Penelope's daughter.

Penelope's Daughter

Woman is born free, and everywhere she is in corsets. . . . Lili du Châtelet yearns to know more about her mother, the brilliant French mathematician Emilie. But the shrouded details of Emilie’s unconventional life—and her sudden death—are elusive. Caught between the confines of a convent upbringing and the intrigues of the Versailles court, Lili blossoms under the care of a Parisian salonnière as she absorbs the excitement of the Enlightenment, even as the scandalous shadow of her mother’s past haunts her and puts her on her own path of self-discovery. Laurel Corona’s breathtaking new novel, set on the eve of the French Revolution, vividly illuminates the tensions of the times, and the dangerous dance between the need to conform and the desire to chart one’s own destiny and journey of the heart.

Finding Emilie

Michael Bart

Documents the co-author's parents' secret role in the Avengers Jewish resistance movement, including their dramatic escape with fellow members of the underground and their relationship with Zionist leader Abba Kovner.

A Holocaust Story of Love and Partisan Resistance

Until Our Last Breath

"This is a powerful tale of the triumph of love under extremely difficult conditions. " - Publishers Weekly At Leizer Bart's funeral, one of the mourners told his son Michael that the gravestone should include a reference to the Freedom Fighters of Nekamah, to honor his late father's involvement in the Jewish resistance movement in Vilna (now Vilnius), Lithuania, at the end of World War II. Michael had never heard his parents referenced as Freedom Fighters. Following his father's death, and with his mother in failing health, Michael embarked on a ten-year research project to find out more details about his parents' time in the Vilna ghetto, where they met, fell in love, and married, and about their activities as members of the Jewish resistance. Until Our Last Breath is the culmination of his research, and his parents' story of love and survival is seamlessly tied into the collective story of the Vilna ghetto, the partisans of Vilna, and the wider themes of world history. Zenia, Bart's mother, was born and raised in Vilna. Leizer fled there to escape the Nazi invasion of his hometown of Hrubieshov in Poland. They were married by one of the last remaining rabbis ninety days before the liquidation of the ghetto. Leizer was friends with Zionist leader Abba Kovner and became a member of the Vilna ghetto underground. Shortly before the total liquidation of the ghetto, Zenia and Leizer, along with about 120 members of the underground, were able to escape to the Rudnicki forest, about 25 miles away. They became part of the Jewish partisan fighting group led by Abba Kovner—known as the Avengers—which carried out sabotage missions against the Nazi army and eventually participated in the liberation of Vilna. Until Our Last Breath is intensely personal and painstakingly researched, a lasting memorial to the Jews of Vilna, including the resistance fighters and the author's family.

Laurel Corona

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