Bitter Greens

A Library Journal Best Book of 2014: Historical FictionThe amazing power and truth of the Rapunzel fairy tale comes alive for the first time in this breathtaking tale of desire black magic and the redemptive power of loveFrench novelist Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King Louis XIV after a series of scandalous love affairs. At the convent she is comforted by an old nun Sœur Seraphina who tells her the tale of a young girl who a hundred years earlier is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens...After Margherita''s father steals parsley from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife relinquish their precious little girl. Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death. She is at the center of Renaissance life in Venice a world of beauty and danger seduction and betrayal love and superstition.Locked away in a tower Margherita sings in the hope that someone will hear her. One day a young man does.Award-winning author Kate Forsyth braids together the stories of Margherita Selena and Charlotte-Rose the woman who penned Rapunzel as we now know it to create what is a sumptuous historical novel an enchanting fairy tale retelling and a loving tribute to the imagination of one remarkable woman.