Description
A Yorkshire orphan struggling for opportunity against 18th-century odds reluctantly transforms into a Venetian courtesan during the Empires last days.
Renna Covert dreams of a world beyond her Yorkshire life shelling cotton. Having an unlikely education, she hopes to be a maid or even a governess one day. On a fateful night, she meets two men from the West India Company with connections to a country estate and a way out of her urchin life. But before taking a position in the estates scullery, Renna discovers a girl at the local asylum bearing burn scars like those on her back. She uncovers proof that the girl is her sister. But an unexpected foe disrupts her hunt to unearth her familys dark legacy and has Renna committed to the asylum. With her friends help, Renna escapes to the Venetian Ghetto. Danielle, a former courtesan, takes Renna in, but only under the condition that she trains in the one profession Renna fought to avoid-prostitution.
Rennas life transforms from an orphaned waif to a lavish courtesan. Although there are freedoms in her new world, Renna detests what shes become and longs for the family shes never known. She reaches her emotional breaking point when she learns of Danielles aims to sell her into slavery. Having survived with only her wits, opportunity, and a bit of luck, Renna crafts a plan to leave Venice on Carnival night, possibly abandoning the freedom shes gained and the history shes yet to understand. She confronts the fiend behind her familys misfortune in her fight for independence. As Venice concedes to Napoleon in 1797, a life of agency is on the horizon, and Rennas prospects could catapult her out of poverty into an unimaginable future.
THE CURSE OF MAIDEN SCARS is a coming-of-age, womens fiction novel with gothic flair set in the tradition of Victoria Mas THE MADWOMANS BALL, and Sarah Dunants IN THE COMPANY OF THE COURTESAN, with the sensuality of LADY CHATTERLEYS LOVER.
Author: Nicolette Croft, Historium Press
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Historium Press
Published: 06/04/2024
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9781962465403
Language: English
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