This book cover is simply gorgeous. I don’t know what it is about earthy coloring. The color tones are rich, soothing, relaxing, and very appealing to me. I can fall into the artwork and stay there absorbing the beautiful texture. The cover certainly draws me in wanting to read the novel. Below is the book blurb. Sadly, though, Bitter Greens is not available to the US readers just yet. Kate Forsyth is an Australian author. On her website, she gives an interview of how she came to write the retelling of the fairytale, Rapunzel. I wonder if the book is written in the tone of the darkside, similar concept as Snow White and the Huntsman, which will be airing in the theaters this summer?
Title: Bitter Greens
Author: Kate Forsyth
First Published: April 2012
Publisher: Random House Australia
ISBN: 976-1-74166-845-2
Pages: 551
Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens …
After Margherita’s father steals a handful of parsley, wintercress and rapunzel from the walled garden of the courtesan, Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off … unless he and his wife give away their little girl.
Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1513 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-one years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition.
Locked away in a tower, growing to womanhood, Margherita sings in the hope someone will hear her. One day, a young man does …
Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic, and the redemptive power of love.
Here’s the link to Kate Forsyth inspiration for writing Bitter Greens.
http://www.kateforsyth.com.au/Inspiration_Behind_Bitter_Greens
Adding to my TBR list.
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