The Glassmaker

Tracy Chevalier

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 12/09/2024 ISBN: 9780008153861 Category: Books

Hardback Original price was: £20.00.Current price is: £18.00.

Mr B's review

Orsola Rosso is a talented, passionate, and resilient character who lives through the drama of her family’s prestigious glasswork business on an island near Venice. Beginning in the 1400s, we meet Orsola as a young girl being pushed into the canal to give the family an excuse to spy on a rival’s workshop. This tenacity and curiosity only strengthen as she grows up. Apprehensively watching the business fall into the hands of her hot-headed brother, Orsola’s unusual talent of fusing beads becomes a lifeline for both the family and for her own sense of self.

In a shifting, elongated timeline, this is the story of the Rosso family against a backdrop of changing fashions and trade, personal tragedies, political upheaval, plague, love affairs and war. I loved the sense that this family’s story exists in a slow bubble of time as the rest of the world hurtles though hundreds of years on the far side of the lagoon. – Katrina

Description

‘Ingenious’ THE TIMES, Book of the Year

‘Sparkling’OBSERVER

‘A triumph… beyond admiration’ PHILIP PULLMAN

‘Spellbinding…. Chevalier at her fabulous best’ ELIF SHAFAK

‘As finely wrought as a dazzling Murano bead… one of the reigning queens of historical fiction’ INDEPENDENT

‘A spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game’ SPECTATOR

FROM THE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?

Tracy Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is vivid, inventive, spellbinding: a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.

Publisher Review

‘A triumph… a brilliant idea carried out with confidence and brio and a deep love of an extraordinary city. The ingenuity of the time-skipping is beyond admiration’ PHILIP PULLMAN

‘Spellbinding…. Chevalier at her fabulous best. A rich, vivid and gently enchanting novel’ ELIF SHAFAK

‘Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon, the story challenges and transports the reader through time and place’ PHILIPPA GREGORY

‘This charming fable is at once a love story that skips through six centuries, and also a love song to the timeless craft of glassmaking. Chevalier probes the fierce rivalries and enduring loyalties of Murano’s glass dynasties, capturing the roar of the furnace, the sweat on the skin, and the glittering beauty of Venetian glass’ GERALDINE BROOKS

‘Chevalier, one of our great storytellers, brings us unexpected worlds: Venice and Murano, artisans and empresses, compelling us through five fascinating centuries, with one irresistible family, weaving stories that captivate and transport the reader’ AMY BLOOM

‘Tracy Chevalier pens a novel as ambitious, audacious, and artistic as a Venetian glass goblet… The Glassmaker is a thing of beauty’ KATE QUINN

‘A richly-drawn tale about loyalty and heartbreak, as well as a love letter to the craftsmen-and women-who created exquisite treasures that endure through the ages. A stunning achievement. I couldn’t put it down’ FIONA DAVIS

‘Inspiring, heartbreaking, and magical, The Glassmaker is an inventive and extraordinary feat and an epic for the ages’ KRISTIN HARMEL

‘I lost myself in this beautiful book’ ESTHER FREUD

‘History flows like molten glass in this stunning novel that borders on fantasy’ KIRKUS

‘A potent, bewitching bright spot in a stellar career’ BOOK PAGE