Michelle Lovric

12-year-old Minguillo, who has already contrived to lose one sibling, is listening to the birth-cries of his new sister Marcella, a threat to his inheritance. Minguillo's jealousy will condemn his sister to a series of fates as a cripple, a madwoman and a nun. But Marcella is not quite the soft target Minguillo imagines.

The Book of Human Skin

When Teodora visits Venice she finds mysterious and magical things afoot and uncovers a danger that threatens the very existence of the city - An ancient proverb about an undrowned child seems to hold the key to the mystery.

The Undrowned Child

A brand new exquisitely imagined historical fantasy novel set on the canals of Venice from award-winning author, Michelle Lovric for ages 9+ Venice in 1740, a serene and lovely city. But look beneath the surface . . . step off the edge of what you think you know . . . Young orphan Lily has grown up in a glum, prison-like convent. Her only freedom is walking the beautiful streets of Venice, dreaming of escape...of a family...of being loved. Then someone tries to steal the bones of Venice's beloved Saint Lucy. Without her protection, the city's vibrant colours fade to grey. And soon, the Venetians start to turn on one another. If Lily can't find a way to save Saint Lucy, Venice - the only home she's ever known - will descend into darkness...forever. A magical adventure set amongst mysterious canals and filled with monstrous eels, moody mermaids and menacing curses.

The Wishing Bones

Venice, 1468. Wendelin von Speyer has just arrived from Germany with the foundations of a cultural revolution: Gutenberg's movable type. Together with the young editor Bruno Uguccione and the seductive scribe Felice Feliciano, he starts the city's first printing press. While Bruno and Felice become entwined in an obsessive love triangle with a beautiful Dalmatian woman named Sosia, Wendelin tempts the fates by publishing the first edition of the erotic Roman poems of Catullus -- a move that will enrage the church, scandalize the city, and change all of their lives forever. The Floating Book is a ravishing novel of letters and lust, intrigue and betrayal -- a chillingly beautiful debut that few readers will soon forget.

A Novel of Venice

The Floating Book

Two summers ago, Venice was dying and an 11-year-old girl made her first (so she thought) visit to the city where she instantly felt she belonged. Teodora, it transpired, was the undrowned child, destined to save Venice from its long-standing enemy, Bajamonte Tiepolo, the traitor. According to a long ago prophecy, Teo and Renzo (the studious son) were the only people equipped to defeat the baddened magic that the traitor brought to the stricken city. But they couldn't kill him - and so, subdued, but bitter, he returned to his shadowy existence. Now he's back. And in need of a new army, he sets his sights on London - which is weak with mourning the death of the Queen, Victoria. Teo and Renzo find themselves on board a ship for orphans whose course seems mysteriously set for London. Once again, destiny brings them face to face with their enemy, who will stop at nothing to destroy not only London and Venice but the children at the heart of the prophecy that binds him to his failure.

The Mourning Emporium

"It's rural Ireland in the second half of the nineteenth century, the age of the Pre-Raphaelites, when Europe burns with a passion for long, flowing locks. So when seven sisters, born into fatherless poverty, grow up with hair cascading down their backs, to their ankles, and beyond, men are not slow to recognize their potential. Soon, they're a singing and dancing septet: Irish jigs kicked out in dusty church halls. But it is not their singing or their dancing that fills the seats: it is the torrents of hair they let loose at the end of each show. In an Ireland still hungry and melancholy with the Great Famine, the Swiney hair is a rich offering. And their hair will take dark-hearted Darcy, bickering twins Berenice and Enda, plain Pertilly, gentle Oona, wild Ida, and fearful, flame-haired Manticory--the writer of their on- and off-stage adventures--out of poverty, through the dance halls of Ireland, to the salons of Dublin and the palazzi of Venice. It will bring them suitors and obsessive admirers, it will bring some of them love and each of them loss. For their past trails behind the sisters like the tresses on their heads and their fame and fortune will come at a terrible price. Rich in period detail, peopled by a bewitching cast of characters, The True and Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters is a tale of exploitation and celebrity, illegitimacy and sibling rivalry, love triangles and financial skullduggery, of death and devilry. And a very great deal of hair."--

The true and splendid history of the Harristown sisters

Twelve-year-old Aurelia Bon can see what happened in a place by merely pressing her fingertips up against the walls. So when young boys start disappearing around an old palace, Aurelia must use her ability to find out what has happened, before the boys of Venice disappear forever.

The Palace That Ate Boys

Nikiforos Doxiadis Mardas

Why confine yourself to boring monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon taunts and insults when you can defame, demean, degrade, demolish and damn in the deft language of Cierco, Martial, Ovid, Cattullus, Horace and others? Now you can impress your friends and devestate your enemies with the filth and wit of your newly-excavated repetoire of classical invective Usefully arranged in sections for the sexless, gormless, worthless and unscrupulous (etc etc), with special sections on regional taunts and useful threats, the book contains illustrations from classical sources and is immaculately researched by a young Cambridge classics scholar and an expert in the ancient languages of desire and desperation.

How to Insult, Abuse & Insinuate in Classical Latin

Nell’estate del 1899 qualcosa di strano sta accadendo a Venezia: il mare si è fatto caldo come il sangue, squali si aggirano per la laguna e i pozzi vomitano colonne d’acqua bollente. Tra gli scienziati chiamati a investigare sui fenomeni c’è la famiglia di Teodora Stampara, undicenne curiosa, intelligente e dotata di un talento insolito: la capacità di ‘vedere le parole’ dei suoi interlocutori. Ma quella che per lei si prospettava come una vacanza prende tutt’altra piega quando un libro misterioso, La Chiave della Città Segreta, la ‘sceglie’ cadendole in testa e senza chiederle il permesso la precipita nel lato nascosto e occulto della città, popolato di sirene che parlano come scaricatori di porto, gatti alati, spettri deformi e apparizioni ancor più spaventose. Divenuta invisibile a tutti tranne che ai bambini e alle creature soprannaturali, Teodora, che vorrebbe disperatamente tornare alla sua vita e alla sua famiglia, instaura un complicato rapporto con Renzo, ragazzino veneziano altezzoso e coltissimo, e insieme a lui si ritrova coinvolta in una battaglia secolare per la sopravvivenza della città, che sta per giungere al culmine ora che il più spaventoso tra i nemici di Venezia è risorto dalla sua tomba sotto la laguna e si prepara a sferrare un ultimo, terrificante assalto.

Il Grimorio di Venezia

Mimosina Docezza, a Venetian actress and spy, and Valentine Greatrakes, leader of London's medical underworld, carry on a turbulent love affair and find themselves involved with a mysterious young girl, Pevenche, whose true identity is a secret.

A Novel

The Remedy

Offers reproductions of letters from Isadora Duncan, Robert Browning, Dylan Thomas, and others

An Anthology of Passion

Love Letters

Includes such clever and acidic comments as Nancy Astor's "I married beneath me. All women do" and other observations by women on men

Dangerously Witty Quotations by Women about Men

Deadlier Than the Male

Carnaval em Veneza

livro II.

Carnaval em Venezia

Shoppers just can't resist: They scan the beautiful covers of our Little Books and feel compelled to pick up at least one of these miniature treasures.That certainly helps account for the four and a half million Little Books we sell annually. These miniature volumes make such wonderful gifts with their range of topics, pleasing designs, and unique ability to convey the very essence of their subjects. They are colorful, creative, and a delight to give and receive.The Fall 2001 list includes a profusion of selections. We're offering choices that cover everything from warm relationships to hard-nosed business advice. Chris Shea's two Little Books display the best of both parenting and grandparenting. Parenting also gets a decidedly humorous touch in Jim Dale's look at Jewish mothers, while Michael Cader has fun with mothers, fathers, and everyone getting older in his hilarious diminutive tomes.Our Little Book list also reflects a variety of women's interests: Cate Holly's teen spin on friends, moms, and sisters; Michelle Lovric's letters between women and among lovers; and Laura Boswell's outstanding collection of quotations regarding business.This beautiful book of words between women celebrates the many ages and stages in women's lives. Includes miniature envelopes with letter inserts.

A Little Anthology of Passion

A guide for lovers, with model letters, historical examples, and practical advice for all occasions.

How to Write Love Letters

Words and illustrations depict many aspects of the seas.

A Celebration of Nature, in Word and Image

The Seas

13 May 1784, Venice Minguillo Fasan, heir to the decaying gothic Palazzo Espagnol is born. Yet Minguillo is no ordinary child he is strange, devious, and all those who come near him are fearful. Twelve years later Minguillo is faced with an unexpected threat to his inheritance - a newborn sister, Marcella. His untempered jealousy will condemn his sister to a series of fates as a cripple, a madwomen and a nun. But his insatiable quest to destroy her, he may have underestimated his sisters ferocious determination and her unlikely allies who will go to extraordinary lengths to save her ...

In this darkly beautiful and hauntingly vivid novel, Michelle Lovric, acclaimed author of The Floating Book, embarks on an unforgettable journey through the winding alleys and shadowy streets of eighteenth-century Venice and London. With vibrant prose, she weaves together the stories of three disparate yet intertwined characters who find themselves embroiled in a world of murder and secrets. There is Mimosina Dolcezza, the Venetian actress employed as an agente provocatrice by surreptitious European power brokers. By fortune and circumstance, she begins an affair with the elusive Valentine Greatrakes, a roguish fixture within London's medical underworld. Complicating matters for the pair is the presence of the eccentric and strange child-woman Pevenche, a figure whose fate and identity lie at the heart of the book's mystery. Following this shadowy group from the dark environs of London's Bankside to the lively streets of Venice, The Remedy guides us through playhouses, brothels, and convents with luscious details that breathe intoxicating life into the era. Long-listed for the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction, The Remedy is a seductive and suspenseful tale that stays with you long after you've turned the final page.

Michelle Lovric

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