The Renegades of Genoa

Im not going home. Im done; I refuse to live under Fathers thumb anymore. I dont want to live a life like my mother did or the life of a princess mongst the Venetians with that ugly tree knot Corbella said. For Peters sake you are a dunce. What are you going to do stead? Meliorie asked. Ah cousin you dont do me enough credit. I managed to take enough money to last awhile but who can tell? I imagined we would figure it out on the go. We? Meliorie and Corbella two cousins from wealthy Genoese merchant families are horrified by the prospect of being married off to Venetians in order to further the ambitions of their family. Together they forsake their weddings disguise themselves as boys and strike off on their own. The days pass uneventfully until they meet a young man named Robert Corlieu who steals their money before fleeing toward Marseilles. Having no prospects in Genoa which is under attack from Venice due to their escape the cousins follow in hot pursuit. Little do they know that their thief is the member of an order trying desperately to defend Europe against a threat from the east: an army of the dead that spreads disease and ravages anything that crosses its path. With Corlieus help the two girls learn to hold their own both in the wild and in battle until they come face-to-face with the greatest challenge of their independent lives: Meliories brother who has led a party of riders after them and demands that they return home.