Tracy Chevalier for The Glassmaker

'Spellbinding' ELIF SHAFAK

'Ingenious' THE TIMES, Book of the Year

'Sparkling'OBSERVER

'A triumph' PHILIP PULLMAN

Tracy Chevalier has been visiting Venice regularly since her honeymoon there thirty years ago. She is a master of her craft and author of eleven novels, including A Single Thread, Remarkable Creatures and Girl with a Pearl Earring, an international bestseller that has sold over five million copies and been made into a film, a play and an opera.

Tracy joins us for The Glassmaker, a vivid, inventive, spellbinding novel. It is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.

Venice, 1486.

Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here - like the glass the island's maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna - but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?