Orphan of Florence

In this irresistible historical novel set in the turbulent world of the Medicis a young woman finds herself driven from pick-pocketing to espionage when she meets a mysterious man.Giulia has been an orphan all her life. Raised in Florence''s famous Ospedale degli Innocenti her probing questions and insubordinate behavior made her an unwelcome presence and at the age of fifteen she was given an awful choice: become a nun or be married off to a man she didn''t love. She chose neither and after refusing an elderly suitor Giulia escaped onto the streets of Florence. Now after spending two years as a successful pickpocket an old man catches her about to make off with his purse and rather than having her carted off to prison he offers her a business proposition. The man claims to be a cabalist a student of Jewish mysticism and ritual magic who works for the most powerful families in Florence. But his identity is secret―he is known only as the Magician of Florence―and he is in need of an assistant. She accepts the job and begins smuggling his talismans throughout the city. But the talismans are not what they seem and neither is the Magician. When Giulia''s involvement with him ends with his murder she''s drawn into a treacherous web of espionage and deceit involving the forces of Rome Naples and a man known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. Accused of the Magician''s murder Giulia is pursued by the handsome policeman Niccolo Lorenzo''s henchmen and foreign spies and in order to survive she must not only solve the mystery of the mystery of the Magician''s murder but that of her own past.