I really wanted to like this book. I really did. If I hadn't committed myself to reading this book for Historical Mystery Monopoly, I would have given up about half way in. I had promised myself this was going to be the year I worked on my inability to put aside books that don't hold my interest. In my defense, this is really the first book I've read all year that I finished while wondering why I continued to torture myself. 

I've seen so many other reviews that paint the protagonist, Luciana, as some sort of wondrous heroine and a breath of fresh air. I even read reviews that applauded her constant desire for sex as honest and welcoming. Maybe I read a different book. The Luciana I saw was a brainless, silly girl. She had to be completely brainless to allow for Brother Guido to step in and throw countless, drawn out information drops and conspiracy theories at the reader. 

I will give the author credit for her research and creativity. The plot is creative. The theory surrounding Botticelli's secret message within the painting is nothing short of brilliant. However, the reader never really gets a chance to feel like they are knee deep in some sort of Renaissance Dan Brown concoction. Before you have a chance to work things out on your own, Brother Guido is off on yet another boring monologue, spoon-feeding the reader everything.    

This review may come off to some as a little harsh and it probably is. I feel my disappointment with the novel matches the tone of my review. The Medici family by itself is fascinating enough on its own. Throw in the constant plotting by the church and various other Italian families against the Medici and you have enough intrigue to fill a library. (Side note: This is exactly what makes me such a huge fan of Ezio Auditore and the Assassin's Creed games) This book offered me none of the atmosphere of intrigue and scandal I am accustomed to when it comes to Renaissance Italy. 

I love that the sole reason for Luciana's lack of brains is to provide Guido with the opportunity to supply the reader with unnecessary information dumps. 

If nothing else after reading, I will know how to count to three in Italian.

Of all the art forms, I like to watch glass artists create the most. The heat, the liquid nothingness, the color, and fragile strength stun me every time. 

Here is to the Glass Artists of Romance: glassworkers, glass blowers, stain glass artists, and glass painters from every subgenre. 

1.  Edge of Dawn by Patti O'Shea

Glass artist Shona Blackwood has lost her ability to create, but instead of panic, all she feels is apathy. Her detachment is shaken when she narrowly avoids being mugged, thanks to a timely rescue by a man who makes all her senses come roaring to life.

Logan Andrews is a magical troubleshooter assigned to protect Shona from an unseen enemy. Shona is unaware that magic actually exists and Logan is under orders not to tell her, but it isn't long before he finds his loyalty torn between his people and the passionate woman he is guarding.

He thought this would be a straightforward job, but Logan quickly realizes that in an edgy contest between magic and passion, love is destined to win.

2. Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington.  She is stunned and blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal:  her fiancé Kevin has left her.  His new lover is Lucy’s own sister.   Lucy's bitterness over being dumped is multiplied by the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.   Facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's parents, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy and hopefully loosen her up and get her over her anger. Complications ensue when Sam and Lucy begin to fall in love, Kevin has second thoughts, and Lucy discovers that the new relationship in her life began under false pretenses. Questions about love, loyalty, old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings are explored as Lucy learns that some things in life—even after being broken—can be made into something new and beautiful.

3. The Glass-Blowers by Daphne du Maurier

The world of the glass-blowers has its own traditions, it's own language - and its own rules. 'If you marry into glass' Pierre Labbe warns his daughter, 'you will say goodbye to everything familiar, and enter a closed world'. But crashing into this world comes the violence and terror of the French Revolution, against which the family struggles to survive.

Years later, Sophie Duval reveals to her long-lost nephew the tragic story of a family of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on her own family's tale of tradition and sorrow, Daphne du Maurier weaves an unforgettable saga of beauty, war, and family.

4. Beautiful Stranger by Ruth Wind

Raised in a gilded cage, she was the chubby twin sister no one noticed. Now her weight loss made Marissa Pierce the kind of woman every man desired—including Robert Martinez. If only she had the courage to return his seductive gaze…

A proud Native American, Robert resented Marissa's privileged lifestyle. Yet this elegant stranger understood his wounded heart. Now Robert was determined to show her how truly beautiful she was—before the princess could escape to her ivory tower forever.

5. Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder

As a glassmaker and a magician-in-training, Opal Cowan understands trial by fire. Someone has sabotaged the Stormdancer clan's glass orbs, killing their most powerful magicians. The Stormdancers—particularly the mysterious and mercurial Kade—require Opal's unique talents to prevent it from happening again. But when the mission goes awry, Opal must tap into a new kind of magic. Yet the further she delves into the intrigue behind the glass and magic, the more distorted things appear. With lives hanging in the balance—including her own—Opal must control her powers…powers that could lead to disaster beyond anything she's ever known.

6. And the Bride Wore Plaid by Karen Hawkins

Devon St John has never had a problem in his life—until now. Born to wealth and privilege, surrounded by a warm and loving family, he has pursued a life of leisure, chasing the most beautiful women London has to offer. All told, he has the perfect life and no intentions of ever settling down in any shape, form or fashion. So resolved, he heads to his friend’s Scottish castle, unaware that fate is already hard at work.

As the illegitimate half-sister to Viscount Strathmore, Melody Macdonald refuses to reside under his roof and instead lives in a thatched house on the edge of the forest that borders Strathmore Castle. Ever since she ran off at the tender age of twelve to become an apprentice to a master of stained glass, Melody has been deplorably independent and wild. When Devon arrives at Strathmore Castle, he is taken aback by the rude, overbearing, illegitimate Scotswoman who refuses even to pretend to possess any feminine wiles. But Devon is determined to teach the strong-willed Melody a lesson in love ...

7. Tiffany Girl by Deeanne Gist

As preparations for the 1893 World’s Fair set Chicago and the nation on fire, Louis Tiffany—heir to the exclusive Fifth Avenue jewelry empire—seizes the opportunity to unveil his state-of-the-art, stained glass, mosaic chapel, the likes of which the world has never seen.

But when Louis’s dream is threatened by a glassworkers’ strike months before the Fair opens, he turns to an unforeseen source for help: the female students at the Art Students League of New York. Eager for adventure, the young women pick up their skirts, move to boarding houses, take up steel cutters, and assume new identities as the “Tiffany Girls.”

8. Dreamweaver Trail by Emily March

After another lonely Valentine’s Day, Gabi Romano trades mountain snowfall for sunshine and sand at a luxurious Caribbean getaway. There she finds not one but two thrilling new passions: creating art glass, and Flynn Brogan, the sexy caretaker next door who brings her fantasies to life. But when violence interrupts their romantic interlude, she learns that Flynn is living a lie. Heartsick, she decides to concentrate on her craft. Playing with fire is safer than loving a man like Flynn.
 
Flynn is determined to make things right with Gabi—until his enemies interfere. Now damaged and driven by a need he cannot define, he seeks out Gabi’s Colorado community as a mystery man searching for peace, though not expecting redemption. But he never imagined a place like Eternity Springs, where lives are changed, second chances are given, and the possibility exists for two wounded souls to find their way home . . . to each other. 
 

9. The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato

Venice, 1681. Glassblowing is the lifeblood of the Republic, and Venetian mirrors are more precious than gold. Jealously guarded by the murderous Council of Ten, the glassblowers of Murano are virtually imprisoned on their island in the lagoon. But the greatest of the artists, Corradino Manin, sells his methods and his soul to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, to protect his secret daughter. In the present day his descendant, Leonora Manin, leaves an unhappy life in London to begin a new one as a glassblower in Venice. As she finds new life and love in her adoptive city, her fate becomes inextricably linked with that of her ancestor and the treacherous secrets of his life begin to come to light.

10. Bedeviled by Maureen Child

Never again will Maggie Donovan complain that her life is boring. "Boring" sounds pretty good compared to man-eating demons, an ill-tempered pixie, and a way-too-sexy Fae warrior who insists that Maggie is destined to claim the throne - or die trying. One breath of faery dust, and suddenly Maggie's dealing with Otherworld powers she never wanted. and very earthy feelings for a certain immortal.

Do you have a favorite glass artist in Romance? Let me know!

To vote for the best of the best, go to my Goodreads list: Blow: Glassworkers in Romance.

My memory of what books I've put on my wishlist because of this game is terrible.  I'm sure there are some!

So I'm just listing some stuff I've found out that I want to try recently; I'm not sure of the source on any of them!

About 4 years ago, I visited Venice purely by chance because it was a short distance from Trieste on the Adriatic (a city that attracted my interest, in part, because of its Habsburg past). Ever since, it has been Venice that has held me in thrall. So, when one of my fellow booklovers recently gave me "The Venetian Contract" as a gift, I was curious to see what this book had to offer.

The story begins in Venice during 1576. Plague has descended upon the city-state and its leader, the Doge (who, in an earlier life, had been a Grand Admiral who helped defeat the Ottoman Empire 6 years earlier in the decisive Battle of Lepanto) is in search of a cure. He distrusts the official doctors who hover round him like crows in their austere dark vestments, filled with a conceit that comes from an unassailable belief in their own unique skills in the medical arts/sciences to eradicate all forms of pestilence and disease. The Doge is a devout man, and seeking God's favor, commissions one of Venice's greatest architects (Andrea Palladio) to build a church. For as he expressed to Palladio: "Don't you see? God is punishing Venice. We need an offering, a gift so great that we will turn the edge of the divine anger and stay His hand from smiting our city. If medicine cannot help us, then we must turn to prayer. You, Andrea, you will build a church, on the ruins of the convent of Santa Croce. You will work in the footsteps of Saint Sebastian and build a church so wonderful, so pleasing to the glory of God, that it rivals His creation. And when you are done, the people will come, in their hundreds and thousands, and turn to God; they will praise Him with their voices and thank Him upon their knees. The power of prayer will redeem us all."

In the meantime, across the sea in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, there is a young woman, Feyra Adelet bint Timurhan Murad, daughter of a distinguished sea captain, who, in her own right, is a skilled doctor and special servant to Nur Banu, the widow of the late Sultan Selim. Nur Banu dies a slow, agonizing death under mysterious circumstances, but not before disclosing to Feyra a long, hidden personal secret. She also gives Feyra a special piece of jewelry and a set of riddles for her to solve. Nur Banu's son (a greedy, grasping 19 year old who had no great love for his mother, only the desire to rule and exert absolute power over his subjects) becomes Sultan. He seeks to make Feyra his concubine. But before he could bring this about, Feyra manages to escape her family home (which the new Sultan had put under guard) and sneaks aboard a ship headed to Venice with a deadly cargo.

Upon arrival (by stealth, for the ship on which she travelled was on a secret mission for the Sultan) in Venice, Feyra will be plunged into a series of dramatic events in which her life becomes enmeshed with the destiny of a self-assured Dottore (who, with the blessing of the Doge's chief advisor, the Camerlengo, is able to secure the use of a small island for the treatment of people afflicted with the Plague) --- as well as the lives of Palladio and the Doge himself.

This is a story that has all the hallmarks of a lively, heart-stopping novel with elements of love, tragedy, and triumph. The author brings out the character and spirit of Venice that anyone who has travelled there will appreciate. This is a novel that comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.