AustLit

'An exquisitely imagined fantasy novel about a girl who can see history with her touch. Set on the canals of Venice, from an award-winning author, this is a perfect book for fans of Frances Hardinge and Jennifer Bell for 9+ readers.

'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...' (Publication summary)

'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.

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It is the age of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, when Europe burns with a passion for long, flowing locks. And when seven Irish sisters, penniless and fatherless, grow up with hair cascading down their backs, to their ankles, and beyond, men are not slow to recognise their potential. It begins with a singing and dancing septet, but this is not what fills the seats: it is the torrents of hair they let loose at the end of each show. Their hair is a rich offering and will take the sisters 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...'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A magical story about a friendship between two girls, one rich, one poor, whose worlds collide as they fight to save Venice from a dangerous stranger called Fogfinger.

'Fogfinger rules Venice. His Fog Squad and spies are everywhere. The Venetians fear him and obey him. Every year one of their children is lost in a grisly Lambing ceremony. The child must climb the bell tower and let the Fate in the Box decide their destiny. Most end their days in the jaws of the primeval Crocodile that lurks in the lagoon. Or so Fogfinger tells them. But a chance meeting by a green apricot tree between Amneris and Tockle may be the beginning of the end for Fogfinger.

'Silk and sewing, a magical glass kaleidoscope, mermaids and misunderstood Sea-Saurs, talking statues and winged cats, blue glass sea-horses, a spoiled rich girl and a secret society are just some of the ingredients in Michelle Lovric's exquisitely imagined and superbly plotted fourth fantasy set in Venice.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'From the author of The Undrowned Child, a story about what happens when the most headstrong girl in Venice mixes magic and cookery and turns herself into a cat.

'Savage hyena-like creatures threaten Venice - the Ravageurs are on the prowl and seizing men, women and children. On the night of 30 June 1846 Talina's parents disappear and she and her cat, Drusilla, are forced to go and live with her Guardian and his three savage dogs in his lonely tower in the northernmost edge of the city. Here she discovers that she has the ability to change herself into a cat, but changing herself back into a girl isn't quite so easy. As a cat she learns about the Ravageurs and how over the centuries they have become semi magical creatures, visible only to children in the human world, and that they are intent on destroying Venice. She is determined to save the city - it's time for desperate measures - and her adventures are about to begin.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'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 - who are weak with mourning the death of their 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.

'A thrilling sequel to The Undrowned Child, full of mermaids, mourning and menace, in which Teo and Renzo must fight to save London and Venice from baddened magic.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Midday, 13th May, 1784: An earthquake in Peru tears up the white streets of Arequipa. As the dust settles, a young girl with fanaticism already branded on her face arrives at the devastated convent of Santa Catalina. At the same moment, oceans away in Venice, the infant Minguillo Fasan tears his way out of his mother's womb. The great Palazzo Espagnol, built on Peruvian silver and New World drugs, has an heir.

'Twelve years later, Venice is in Napoleon's sights and Minguillo, who has already contrived to lose one sibling, is listening to the birth-cries of his new sister Marcella, a delicate, soft-skinned threat to his inheritance. Meanwhile, at Santa Catalina, the scarred young girl has become Sor Loreta, whose craving for sainthood is taking a decidedly sinister turn.

'Minguillo's livid jealousy will condemn his sister to a series of fates as a cripple, a madwoman and a nun. But Marcella Fasan is not quite the soft target Minguillo imagines. Aided by a loyal servant, an irascible portrait-painter, a young doctor obsessed with skin, a warhorse of a Scottish merchant and a cigar-smoking pornographer nun, Marcella pits her sense of humour, her clever pencil and her fierce heart against Minguillo's pitiless machinations. Her journey takes her from Napoleon's shamed Venice to the last picaresque days of colonial Peru - where the fanatical Sor Loreta has plans of her own for the young girl from Venice.

'Bewitching, daring, darkly humorous and alive with historical detail, The Book of Human Skin is a breathtaking story of unmitigated villainy, Holy Anorexia, quack medicine, murder, love and a very unusual form of bibliomania.' (From the publisher's website.)

'It's the beginning of the 20th century; the age of scientific progress. But for Venice the future looks bleak. A conference of scientists assembles to address the problems, among whose delegates are the parents of eleven-year-old Teodora. Within days of her arrival, she is subsumed into the secret life of Venice: a world in which salty-tongued mermaids run subversive printing presses, ghosts good and bad patrol the streets and librarians turn fluidly into cats. A battle against forces determined to destroy the city once and for all quickly ensues. Only Teo, the undrowned child who survived a tragic accident as a baby, can go "between-the-linings" to subvert evil and restore order.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'One unforgettable night in 1785, in a theatre in Drury Lane, the heady alchemy of love and murder suddenly fuses the lives of Mimosina Dolcezza, a Venetian actress and Valentine Greatrakes, prince of London's medical underworld.

'Dangerous secrets and elaborate lies soon send the lovers spinning in different directions, desperate for the truth not just about one another but also their own pasts. Their quest takes them from the dank environs of London's Bankside to the enigmatic city of Venice; her playhouses and brothels, apothecaries and quack doctors, spies and noblemen, her convents and her crypts.' (From the author's website.)