26 books like Venetian Artisans

I used to work as a costume designer, so I admit I have a bit of a thing for old textiles. I couldn’t resist this book, which features the silk trade and has a mystery at its heart.

The three women whose fates are linked by the Silk House in a quiet market town are all interesting characters, and their lives are linked together well by the author over the span of the 17th to 21st centuries.

The book contains two of my favourite interests, the historical silk trade and the ancient healing powers of herbal medicine. It also rattles along at a good pace and has a lovely surprise of an ending. 

I loved the portrait of late 14th-century feudal England in this story of a master illuminator and his forbidden English translation of the Bible.

There are not many books set in this period, and it really immersed me in the time. Lady Kathryn of Blackingham Manor is a character that is both strong and vulnerable, and I was really rooting for her and for her relationship with Finn, the craftsman, to work out. The monastic life is excellently described, as is the craft of illumination.

This is a book that stayed with me for a long time with its rich portrayal of the past.

I loved the descriptions of the craft of glassmaking, especially the fact that something so hard could be made out of something so hot and molten. A big part of my enjoyment of this book rested on the descriptions of glittering glass, which seemed to mirror the Venetian Lagoon.

Another thing I loved was the fact I felt a connection to Nora, who was transported from her ordinary life to a life in Venice where everything was shifting because of its watery nature. There was great attention to detail in the writing that brought the seventeenth-century past to life on the island of Murano, a closed world where no one could leave.

This is the sixth book in a series that mostly does take place in Tudor England and even includes occasional glimpses of Elizabeth I and Will Shakespeare. But it mainly focuses on Christoval (Caterina, nicknamed Kit) Alvarez, the daughter of a Portuguese Jewish medical doctor who masquerades as a man so that she can practice medicine. In this adventure, set in 1590, Kit accompanies a group of English merchants to the court of Boris Godunov in Moscow and treats Prince Dmitry Ivanovich—the last son of Ivan the Terrible, who died suddenly at the age of nine, reputedly on Boris’s orders. I acted as historical consultant for this novel, and I can recommend it wholeheartedly as an engaging, well-written tale that can be enjoyed as a stand-alone.

If Eastern and Central Europe are often ignored in historical fiction in the sixteenth century, that’s even more true of lands east of the Ural Mountains. This gorgeous study of Mughal India in the reigns of Emperor Humayun and his son Akbar charts the story of Adhira, a temple dancer in Rajasthan. Born during one of her homeland’s rare rainstorms, Adhira bears the weight of her father’s expectation that she will carry on the kathak tradition to which he has devoted his life. Through the story of Adhira and her brother Mahendra, Duva—herself a practitioner of kathak—plunges us into the highs and lows of temple life and reveals a deep understanding of the religious dance she portrays.

This book was my introduction to Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles. I picked it up at a library sale and was immediately caught up in its portrayal of Francis Crawford, a Scottish adventurer who ends up at the court of Ivan the Terrible. Based loosely on the diary of Sir Jerome Horsey, it represents an older understanding of how Muscovite Russia operated, but it’s a great adventure told with vivid details and remarkable characters, still my favorite among the six books in this series.

One lingering effect of the Cold War is that many people in Europe and North America have little sense of the close ties that linked all parts of Europe in the sixteenth century. This well-written mystery set during the Polish Renaissance begins with the wedding of Bona Sforza to King Zygmunt of Poland and is told by Lady Caterina Sanseverino, a widow from Bari charged with keeping Bona’s ladies-in-waiting in line. A courtier is murdered at the royal family’s Christmas feast in 1519, and as the bodies pile up, Caterina becomes increasingly drawn into the hunt for the perpetrator. The mystery is well handled, but what sets this novel apart is the author’s gift for recreating a long-ago and little-known world. 

The Four Horsemen is Gregory Dowling’s follow-up to his book Ascension. Set in the 1700s, it’s a thriller/mystery that follows a tour guide (yes, they had them back then) who is recruited into a secret police of sorts. They need him to investigate the death of an agent, which is connected to a secret society called The Four Horsemen. Forced to go on the run, the book delves into the back alleys, canals, and island of Venice. Another wonderfully researched book that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

While not as famous as Thomas Mann or Anne Rice, Marina Fiorato well deserves her place on this list with The Venetian Bargain. It’s another superbly researched and beautifully written piece of historical fiction set in 1576 during the plague. Grounded in fact, it follows a young Turkish girl, scorned in her homeland, who sneaks aboard a boat bound for Venice. She soon discovers the ship's illicit cargo in the hold—and the sultan’s horrific plan—a man infected with bubonic plague. The man infects the entire city within days. This book is much more than a historical account. It’s a gripping story with compelling characters. What’s more, much of what the world has gone through with Covid-19, from masks to quarantine, was invented by the Venetians and it's covered in The Venetian Bargain through the eyes of wonderful characters.

There are so many amazing books set in Venice, but no list is complete without Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. It’s a literary classic from 1912 that not only stands the test of time, it exceeds the hype. Death in Venice follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a famous author who travels to Venice in search of inspiration. Instead, he finds obsession. Death in Venice is erotic and dark, but what I love most about this book is how it captures the city’s bewitching personality.