Carnival Of Ash

"Cadenza is the City of Words, a city run by poets, its skyline dominated by the steepled towers of its libraries...Carlo Mazzoni, a young wordsmith, arrives at the city gates intent on making his name as the bells ring out with the news of the death of the city's poet-leader. Instead, he finds himself embroiled with the intrigues of a city in turmoil...A war that threatens not only to destroy Cadenza but remove it from history altogether"--
An extravagant, lyrical novel about a city of poets and librarians at the height of the Renaissance. A city that never was.A City of Poets and Dreamers, Liars and Cheats…Tommaso Cellini, celebrated ruler of Cadenza, is dead, and the city mourns. For Carlo Mazzoni, an aspiring poet, it was the day of his arrival in the City of Words and the end of his dreams to walk side-by-side with the great man, two artists together.For Vittoria — known to all but a handful as the famed ink maid Hypatia — the death of a ruler is less troubling than her sadness and inability to write. Without it, her admirers will leave her, and with it her livelihood.With its ruler dead, the city plunges into turmoil amid rumours of war with its rival Venice. Surrounded by murder, intrigue, revenge and revolution, they must rely on new friends and sinister acquaintances to find their paths to freedom.