This is the ultimate curl up and read which reminded me most of Gone With The Wind, except it is set in Florence – at the height of the Renaissance. This is a great love story and a wonderful history lesson. What was particularly intriguing to me was discovering that the author created the entire story after discovering old letters in the New York Public Library – true documents of a correspondence between the Contessa of Florence and a passionate, poor young woman. The rest as they say is in the story....

I really enjoyed this book. Generally I find historical novels to be heavy and slow, but even though this book was packed with historical events, and their backgrounds I had a wonderful time reading it. Perhaps it's just the time and place described that are fascinating. The characters were masterfully crafted and interesting, and I found them thoroughly believable. The story is all the more fascinating knowing that it is based on a person that actually existed.

A wonderful and rich historical novel of the incredible life of a strong Jewish woman during the Italian Renaissance. Park has clearly done her research, but rather than it bogging down the story, she uses it effortlessly to move the plot forward. It's been a really long time since I read historical fiction this good.

It is very uncommon for me to struggle to finish a book and this is exactly what happened with this one. I found it to be well written, however I could not relate to any of the characters - least of all Grazia. Very slow paced, I thought it could easily have been edited by at least 100 pages. Apart from the great history lesson, I would not recommend this book.