'Enthralling, passionate, vivid.
The Instrumentalist is a marvel'
KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE
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Anna Maria may have no name, no fortune, no family. But she has her ambition, and her talent.
Her best hope lies in her teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. Soon she is his star pupil.
But as Anna Maria's star rises, not everyone is happy. Because Anna Maria's shining light is threatening to eclipse that of her mentor.
She will leave her mark, whatever it takes. And her story will be heard.
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'Had me spellbound from start to finish'
EMMA STONEX
'A story of musical rivalry which will completely capture your imagination'
ELODIE HARPER
'I was swept away by this searing portrait of ambition and betrayal'
ELIZABETH MACNEAL
'An immersive, impassioned tale full of colour and sound'
OBSERVER
'A fascinating story of music, ambition, and womanhood in eighteenth-century Venice'
CHARMAINE WILKERSON
'Viscerally transports you to eighteenth-century Venice and revives the lost story of a phenomenal woman'
MARIE CLAIRE
**An Observer Debut Novelist of 2024**
A dazzling historical debut set in eighteenth-century Venice, about the woman written out of the story of one of history's greatest musical masterpieces
'Enthralling, passionate, vivid. The Instrumentalist is a marvel' Kiran Millwood Hargrave
'I was swept away by this searing portrait of ambition and betrayal' Elizabeth Macneal
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Venice. 1704. In this city of glittering splendour, desperation and destitution are never far away. At the Ospedale della Pietà, abandoned orphan girls are posted every through a tiny gap in the wall every day.
Eight-year-old Anna Maria is just one of the three hundred girls growing up within the Pietà's walls - but she already knows she is different. Obsessive and gifted, she is on a mission to become Venice's greatest violinist and composer, and in her remarkable world of colour and sound, it seems like nothing with stop her.
But the odds are stacked against an orphan girl - so when the maestro selects her as his star pupil, Anna Maria knows she must do everything in power to please this difficult, brilliant man. But as Anna Maria's star rises, threatening to eclipse that of her mentor, the dream she has so single-mindedly pursued is thrown into peril...
From the jewelled palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, this is a story of one woman's irrepressible ambition and rise to the top, of loss and triumph, and of who we choose to remember and leave behind on the path to success.
