Enfilade

From Penguin Random House:

Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker: A Novel (New York: Viking, 2024), 416 pages, ISBN: ‎978-0525558279, $32.

From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day

It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure. Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is spellbinding: a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city as everlasting as their glass.

Tracy Chevalier is the New York Times bestselling author of ten previous novels, including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which has been translated into forty-five languages and made into an Oscar-nominated film, a play, and an opera. Born and raised in Washington, DC, she lives in London with her husband.

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From Simon & Schuster:

Harriet Constable, The Instrumentalist (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2024), 336 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1668035825, $28.

A stunning debut novel of music, intoxication, and betrayal inspired by the true story of Anna Maria della Pietà, a Venetian orphan and violin prodigy who studied under Antonio Vivaldi and ultimately became his star musician—and his biggest muse

Anna Maria della Pietà was destined to drown in one of Venice’s canals. Instead, she became the greatest violinist of the 18th century. Anna Maria has only known life inside the Pietà, an orphanage for children born of prostitutes. But the girls of the Pietà are lucky in a sense: most babies born of their station were drowned in the city’s canals. And despite the strict rules, the girls are given singing and music lessons from an early age. The most promising musicians have the chance to escape the fate of the rest: forced marriage to anyone who will have them. Anna Maria is determined to be the best violinist there is—and whatever Anna Maria sets out to do, she achieves. After all, the stakes for Anna could not be higher. But it is 1704 and she is a girl. The pursuit of her ambition will test everything she holds dear, especially when it becomes clear that her instructor, Antonio Vivaldi, will teach Anna everything he knows—but not without taking something in return.

Harriet Constable is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker living in London. She has written for The New York Times, The Economist, and the BBC, and is a grantee of the Pulitzer Center and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She grew up playing the flute and piano and singing with her mother, a classically trained pianist and singer. The Instrumentalist is her debut novel.