Debut author Fiona Paul transports readers to Renaissance Venice to witness a mystery both sensational and dangerous in this launch to the Secrets of the Eternal Rose series.
When Cassandra Caravello visits the crypt of Liviana, a contessa from one of Venice's most prominent families, she finds her fair-haired friend's body is missing. In its place is a raven-haired corpse with an X carved over her heart. Cass also finds Falco inside the crypt, an artist who sleeps in graveyards and claims to disturb the dead to learn more about life. The two spend their nights traveling through canals into Venice, a city of human madness, to investigate these murders before the predator can get his hands on Cass.
Cass has been promised to Luca da Peraga for marriage, but the fiancé she never loved has been away for three years. So she gives in to the excitement of Falco. Falco gestures to paint an entire chapel inspired by Cass, and readers will become rapturous whenever the two are on the same page. Their exploits take them through Venetian graveyards, districts with courtesans, a masquerade ball and canals where "evil flows silently among us like venom," all described with lavish prose.
Fiona Paul stocks her historical thriller with red herrings to divert readers from unmasking the villain, right up until the bold conclusion, which hints at a secret order in the sequel, Belladonna, due out next July. --Adam Silvera, reviewer and former bookseller