The King's Agent by Donna Russo Morin

"Russo Morin skillfully blends historical fiction and fantasy in surprising ways. She draws effortlessly upon influences ranging from Dante to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the authority of her presentation makes the world she’s created come alive. A wonderfully action-packed ride through the lush landscape of Renaissance Italy." Starred Review, Publishers Weekly

The King’s Agent is based loosely on the life of Battista della Palla-a patriotic plunderer, a religious rogue-of the 16th century, a lifelong friend to the great Michelangelo.

As the cloistered ward of the Marquess of Mantua, Lady Aurelia is a woman with a profound duty, and a longing for adventure. In search of a relic intended for the King of France, Battista and Aurelia cross the breathtaking landscape of Renaissance Italy. Clues hide in great works of art, political forces collide, secret societies and enemies abound, and danger lurks in every challenge, those that mirror the passages of Dante's Divine Comedy. It is an adventurous quest with undercurrents of the supernatural, powers that could change the balance of supremacy throughout Europe.

Battista della Palla was a real figure from history. He was an art thief, a wheeler dealer, a lifelong friend of Michelangelo, a man of many different facets. He is also the central character in this book. He leads a group of men who all bring their particular skills to finding and acquiring treasures, and also in interpreting the symbolism that is so often hidden in many of the paintings of the time. Generally when he steals, any gain goes towards the cause of freeing Florence - a cause close to his heart.

Battista is a man who loves a challenges. He plans each of his thefts in meticulous detail, not afraid to take the chances he needs to take in order to meet his goal, but also not prepared to put his men, and his own life at any greater risk than he needs to. His interest is piqued when he receives an unusual missive but he has no idea that he is about to begin a quest unlike any other. He infiltrates the home of the Marquess of Mantua thinking that he will find the target item there. Instead, what he finds is a cryptic clue on a parchment, hidden in a room that looks innocent enough but in actual fact is booby trapped. He only escapes thanks to the help of Lady Aurelia.

She is the ward of the Marquess of Mantua, and lives a very sheltered life. What she longs for is adventure and for her, Battista is the key to adventure!

The parchment provides a small clue and that sets Battista and his men, and the Lady Aurelia, on the trail of an obscure triptych. The thing that becomes clear though is that the three pieces are held separately, and that each of the pieces is held in places where there are very dangerous and complex protections in place to stop anyone from finding it. If you are thinking Indiana Jones style quests at this point, then you are on the right track.

Battista and Aurelia must work together to solve the clues, both those in the paintings themselves and those held within the pages of the works of Dante's Divine Comedy. They must face symbolic Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, solve the clues, and find the pieces. In the process we meet some famous faces from history like Michelangelo and Pope Clement, visit some famous places like the Sistine Chapel, face danger,  and deal with their growing attachment to each other.

The biggest dilemma for Battista though is can he trust Aurelia? She is a woman with secrets and he knows that she is not being honest with him, but who is she really, and why is she so determined to be involved in the search for the three parts of the triptych? As a reader, I liked Aurelia, but despite the fact that I only finished the book a few hours ago, don't ask me to explain what her big secret role was.

When I was offered this book, I looked through the blurb and mentally ticked off several boxes for things I like in a book! Renaissance setting - check! Art History - check! Dante - check! (One of my favourite HF reads of the last few years has a Dante connection so I was happy to revisit this). Throw in secret brotherhoods (check) and I would be a happy reader. Sounds all good, right?

Unfortunately, there were a few things that would have made me rethink that if I had of known them at the time. This book is really a cross between a novel and the expanded story behind a computer game. The author freely admits this in the notes where she talks about her love for the game Princess Zelda. The quest that our characters go on therefore consists of find a clue, travel to a distant location, follow the path, find the key to open the gate/door, follow the path, dodge the shooting flames/rolling giant marbles/find your way through the maze etc etc before the final test to determine your worthiness to claim the prize and then barely escape. Rinse and repeat.

It's not really a technique that I enjoy at the best of times, and it really didn't work for me in this book. On of the other things that didn't really work for me was the reliance on the knowledge of Dante's work. Whilst I vaguely know enough, I wasn't familiar enough to see the clues. If you are more familiar with the Divine Comedy you may find it more interesting to follow the clues.

I am not sure if it was these factors that made this a very slow read for me, but it felt like it took me forever to get through it. It really was only a few days, but I could have sworn it was longer.

I must mention the author's notes which I thought were excellent. Donna Russo Morin gives us information about the real people in the book, about her inspiration, about the art in the book and more and the book also included a reading guide.

Ultimately, this book didn't work for me on many levels. If you check the reviews on places like Goodreads you will see that there are plenty of people who loved it, and you can check out other reviews from bloggers who participated on the blog tour by clicking on the links below.

Rating 2/5

Tour Information

Link to tour schedule:http://hfvirtualbooktours.blogspot.com/2011/11/donna-russo-morin-on-tour-for-kings.html
Links for author Donna Russo Morin: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER
Twitter Event Hashtag: #KingsAgentVirtualBookTour

Donna Russo Morin's Books of a Lifetime

Today we welcome Donna Russ Morin to Historical Tapestry to share her Books of a Lifetime.

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I can’t remember when the concept of the power of ‘story’ first came to me; it is so firmly embedded in my memory it’s as if I was born with it. Add to that the sight of my mother, a book in hand whenever possible, and the power was firmly cemented. There are so many children’s books still alive in my mind, it’s as if I just read them again yesterday—Winnie the Pooh, Jungle Book--so profound was their impact on me. But the first to make the Books of Lifetime list would have to be Charlotte’s Webb by E. B. White.

I have no doubt that a primary reason for its importance to me was the power of the female characters, both human and insect. When Fern stood up to her father, when she showed such courage in saving Wilbur, she showed the essence of the feminist revolution taking root all around me, and I wanted to possess the same courage. In Charlotte’s self-sacrifice one felt distinctly the treasure of unconditional love (“’Why did you do all this for me?" he (Wilbur) asked. ‘I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' ‘You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.’”) Throw in all those marvelous quirky sub-characters, and my imagination was ignited beyond reckoning; I believe I slept with the book—carried it with me everywhere I went—for the better part of a year. 

Not so strangely, my next literary obsession also revolved around a spunky female protagonist. The Trixie Belden books were a part of my life for years; they were the feminist version of The Hardy Boy Mysteries. The varying settings, the clues and the mysteries to be solved, were all great escapism for the awkward and confusing pre-adolescent years while firmly giving credence and more emphasis to the female lead. Additionally (pun intended) my complete empathy with Trixie was firmly planted in our mutually struggle with math. By this time, I had already begun writing myself and that concept of empathy became very intrinsic to my literary development—the importance of it in character formation. These stories also solidified my proclivity for a forthright feminine central character; a proclivity that would shape the entirety of my own writing, and will continue to do so.

My late teenaged years and college days were held captive by two male writers…Stephen King and J. R. R. Tolkien. The King taught me, more than any of my ‘literature’ classes in college, how to tell a complex story with brilliant simplicity, a characteristic of his writing that has only gotten better with time. The Lord of the Rings ignited my imagination like little else had before, showing that, when well written (in this case magnificently written), there is nothing beyond a reader’s suspension of disbelief. Tolkien’s mastery at world building emphasized the importance of it, no matter what the ‘world’ may be.

The notes of my genre were first sung to me by the like of James Michener, Margaret Mitchell, Leon Uris and John Jakes, but the first to make me truly think, ‘this is what I want to write,’ was Rosalind Laker’s To Dance With Kings. A family saga, like Jakes, it featured women as the leads amidst the opulence of French royalty; it was a combination I found intoxicating. The historical genre was astoundingly solidified with my final book of a lifetime, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Never was the powerful female protagonist so perfectly formed and the dual edged sword of entertainment and education that characterizes historical fiction so perfectly displayed.

Taking this look back has really held up a mirror to the influences that these great books have had on my own work. It has to be the goal of every writer that they create, for some reader or perhaps some yet-to-be-writer, they’re own Book of a Lifetime.

Tour Information

Link to tour schedule: http://hfvirtualbooktours.blogspot.com/2011/11/donna-russo-morin-on-tour-for-kings.html
Links for author Donna Russo Morin: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER
Twitter Event Hashtag: #KingsAgentVirtualBookTour

Author Bio

Donna Russo Morin was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1958. Her writing endeavors began at age six and covered such timely topics as The Pink Pussy Cat for President and The Numbers 2 and 4 are in Love.

Traveling through adolescence on the wings of the ‘60s gave Donna a lot of grist for her writing mill. Feminism, civil rights, the Vietnam War were all a disturbing yet highly motivating muse. Donna found her voice in fiction and with the appearance of a new horror writer on the book scene, a little known author named Stephen King, she turned her pen to the gruesome and the grotesque.

After graduating from the University of Rhode Island, Donna worked in marketing and advertising for large corporations and small non-profit arts organizations. When she had her children, she knew with a certainty that she needed to show them, by example, that if you believe in yourself, anything is possible.

In addition to writing and teaching writing, Donna has worked as a model and actor since the age of seventeen, when she did her first television commercial for Sears. Since then she has appeared in more than thirty television spots and print ads, everything from changing the oil in her car (that was acting) to modeling fur coats. She also appeared in three episodes of Showtime’s THE BROTHERHOOD, as well as in Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED.

Donna lives peacefully, close to the beautiful shoreline of Rhode Island that she loves so much, with her two sons, Devon and Dylan, her greatest works in progress.

Donna Russo Morin on Why I Love Venice

Infatuation with magical, mythical lands has been a part of the human landscape for centuries. Atlantis, Shambhala, the Garden of Eden—all have been the topic of great research and discussion. Yet there are such real, magical places to be found—tangible, breathtaking, awe-inspiring places. And perhaps none is more mystical and compelling than Venice, Italy.

No more than shoals formed by silt then deposited in the Adriatic lagoon by the mighty Po, Adige and Brinta rivers, the Venetian islands began as a primitive trading post up to the 5th century A.D. The first wave of Barbarians, the Goths under Alaric, crashed down upon the inhabitants of the coastal mainland in 402. Running in fear, the people of Padua, Altino, Concordia, and Aquila took to the sea and took refuge on the little islets of sand and coach grass.

It would not be the last such assault and each one found more and more refugees crossing the lagoon in search of sanctuary. Yet even when the threats of plunder and pillage had passed, no one returned to their mainland homes. Instead, lives of privilege and cultivation were abandoned with glee for the beauty of the islands.

Like those first settlers, I had no intention of ‘spending time’ in Venice, of making it the setting of my second book. But after a two minute news story on the glass makers of Murano and a smattering of research, I was as possessed and obsessed with the unique land as those original colonists. I became enraptured, not only with the beauty of the water-ribboned land, but smitten as well with the innovative inhabitants who learned to build their magnificent stone mansions upon pylons driven into the soft earth of their home and inspired by their rich history, a history replete with determination and fortitude. When I found the likes of Doge Donato, Father Paolo Sarpi and the esteemed Galileo in the pages of Venetian history books, my story unfolded with the ease of an incoming tide.

THE SECRET OF THE GLASS takes place at the inception of the 17th century, when the Murano glassmakers are celebrated, revered, and imprisoned by the Venetian government. Sophia Fiolario, the daughter of a glass making maestro, has no desire for marriage, finding her serenity in the love of her family and the beauty of the glass. She learns of its secrets at her father’s side, where a woman has no right to be. But the life Sophia loves is threatened and she is thrust into the opulent world of the Venice court, becoming embroiled in the scheming machinations of the courtiers’ lives. The beauty of Venice, the magnificence of the Doge’s Palace, can only be rivaled by the intrigue and danger that festers behind their splendid facades. As she searches for an escape, she finds the arms of another, a man whose own desperate situation is yet another obstacle in their path.

Amidst political and religious intrigue, the scientific furor ignited by Galileo, and even murder, Sophia must do anything to protect herself, her family…and the secret of the glass.

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To read an excerpt, visit the author’s website at www.donnarussomorin.com.

Donna Russo Morin is currently working on her third historical novel, tentatively titled TO SERVE A KING, scheduled for an April 2010 release, in which a woman, raised from childhood to be a spy for Henry VIII at the court of Francois I, faces circumstances that spin her life out of control, forcing her to make potentially deadly decisions about her true and ultimate loyalties.