When Ghostanza claims Flavia as her ornatrix-her personal hairdresser and handmaid-Flavia is pulled into a world of glamor and concealment where admiration is everything and perfection is the ultimate, elusive goal. Soon she finds that another exile dwells in the convent: a former Venetian courtesan named Ghostanza whose ostentatious appearance clashes with the otherwise austere convent and sparks gossip throughout the town. Lonely and alienated even from her family, she sabotages her sister's wedding in a fit of jealous rage and is exiled to serve in the convent of Santa Giuliana. It cannot fail to move.In this exquisitely dark debut, Kate Howard delivers a stirring tale on the cost of beauty, packed with suspense and period detail worthy of Kate Mosse, Jessie Burton, and Tracy Chevalier.Cursed from birth by the bird-shaped blemish across her face, Flavia spends much of her life hidden from the outside world. Set in sixteenth century and painted against a vivid historical Italian landscape, rich in description and character and with themes and characters relevant to today, it tackles issues of belonging, female identity and the perception of beauty.
And Flavia is drawn into a world of desire and jealousy that has devastating consequences. But as white-lead paint rots the flesh below it, the bustling city, and Santa Giuliana, is rotting below the shimmer of wealth and privilege.
Flavia becomes her ornatrix: her hairdresser and personal maid. There she meets Ghostanza, a courtesan turned widow, whose white-lead painted face entrances Flavia, and whose beauty and cruelty are unmatched. But on the night before her younger sister's wedding, Flavia does something drastic, something that will draw her into a much wider and stranger world than she could have imagined: the convent of Santa Giuliana, just outside the city walls.
Ashamed of the mark, her mother forces Flavia to conceal her face behind a veil. A dyer's daughter, she grows up in a secluded little house in the woods, away from prying eyes. Flavia was born with a birthmark marring her face in the shape of a bird in flight.
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