Venice, 1623. Beneath the candle smoke and silk of Carnival, a young woman wears the devil's mask, and a wealthy silk merchant asks her name.
She was born Tarsia, the abandoned daughter of a patrician's daughter and a Greek sailor. As a girl she was married to a boy who went to sea, fell into the hands of the Turks, and never came home. Now she calls herself Laura Malipiero, and Francesco Bonomin offers her everything she has never had: a house, a family, a place in the world. Before the wedding, she tells him about the lost husband. He tells her it does not matter.
It will.
When the falling sickness seizes Francesco and their little son, and the physicians can do nothing, Laura turns to her mother, Isabella, a woman who knows remedies no priest would bless. Lead poured into water. Oil, cords, and whispered prayers. Powders stirred into soup. Laura discovers that knowledge can make a woman useful, and that usefulness can be paid for. But Francesco's temper has turned to fists, a stepchild is watching what goes into the pot, and the boy she married long ago has just walked back into Venice, alive.
Now three tribunals close around her. She begs one for protection from her husband. Another will unmake her marriage. And the third, the Holy Office, wants to know exactly what she has been doing in her kitchen.
Stripped of husband, home, and good name, Laura will flee a second marriage through a window with nothing but her life. She will rebuild with her wits, her keys, and the desperate women who knock on her door after dark, begging for a cold lover warmed, a sick child saved, a curse lifted. Laura gives them answers. Sometimes she gives them more certainty than she has.
In Venice, certainty has a price. And the Holy Office has not forgotten her name.
Based on the extraordinary true story of a Venetian healer accused of witchcraft, A Venetian Marriage is the gripping first book of The Healer of Venice duology.
