Carlo Gesualdo,
prince, composer and murderer has his wife and her lover killed in Naples
in 1590. The wife's maidservant,Laura Scala, witnesses the events and
vowes to avenge her mistress.
The princess, Donna
Maria d'Avalos, rescued Laura in Sicily after she had been raped at the age of
thirteen. Laura devotes her life to her saviour and after the murders she
spends years of her life trying to be revenged on the musical prince.
The scene moves from
Sicily to Naples and Venice, back to Naples and finally to the New World. Laura
believes she is carrying a curse. Everyone she becomes involved with appears to
suffers misfortune and death.
A Jewish girl in the
Venetian ghetto is kidnapped and sold into the Sultan's harem, Laura's daughter
is placed in an orphanage without her knowledge, the artist Caravaggio uses
Laura as a model and meets a tragic end.
Three beautiful
pearls given to Laura by her mistress play a part in the story. Is Laura really
cursed - or is it her connection with the murderous prince who dabbles in the
occult?
A gypsy woman is
burned at the stake, a Venetian gondolier meets a mysterious fate and Laura
becomes a skilled herbalist and poisoner by default before the story ends in the
New World. The background to these events is the strange and compelling
music of Gesualdo.
Purchase Links
UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Devils-Tune-Italian-trilogy-ebook/dp/B07CQ8FDP3
US - https://www.amazon.com/Devils-Tune-Italian-trilogy-ebook/dp/B07CQ8FDP3
Excerpt
Laura is in
Venice where she finds a job as maid to a wealthy girl in the ghetto- Sarah da
Costa.
“As I looked around the small room, scattered with costly gowns, I was transported back to Naples, to Donna Maria’s spacious chamber, seeing her nibbling almond biscuits while I re-arranged her clothes and her embroidered slippers, placing pot pourri in burgundy silk bags around the chamber. Sarah’s masks lay untidily on the floor. Donna Maria had always lived behind a mask. The mask was her own face and personality, changed whenever it was necessary.
In my mind’s eye I could
see the cedar press and smell the scent of strawberries that wafted from my
lady’s skin when you drew close to her. I remembered how she would wriggle her
bare feet in the sunlight, admiring her slender ankles as they peeped coyly
from her skirt. Pain gripped my heart for a moment until I came to my senses,
aware that Sarah da Costa was looking at me in alarm.”
Author Bio –
Frances Kempton is a reclusive writer fleeing from the clutches of Jane Austen.
She has an
obsession with Italy. This is the first book in an Italian trilogy
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