The Orphan's Song
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4.3 • 10 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The historical adult debut novel by # 1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Kate, The Orphan's Song is a sweeping love story about family and music--and the secrets each hold--that follows the intertwined fates of two Venetian orphans.
"A tangled knot of betrayal and love, lies and redemption. Marvelous." --Fiona Davis, author of The Address
A song brought them together.
A secret will tear them apart.
Venice, 1736. When fate brings Violetta and Mino together on the roof of the Hospital of the Incurables, they form a connection that will change their lives forever. Both are orphans at the Incurables, dreaming of escape. But when the resident Maestro notices Violetta's voice, she is selected for the Incurables' world famous coro, and must sign an oath never to sing beyond its church doors.
After a declaration of love ends in heartbreak, Mino flees the Incurables in search of his family. Known as the "city of masks," Venice is full of secrets, and Mino is certain one will lead to his long-lost mother. Without him, the walls close in on Violetta and she begins a dangerous and forbidden nightlife, hoping her voice can secure her freedom. But neither finds what they are looking for, until a haunting memory Violetta has suppressed since childhood leads them to a shocking confrontation.
Vibrant with the glamour and beauty of Venice at its zenith, The Orphan's Song takes us on a breathtaking journey of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal before it crescendos to an unforgettable ending, a celebration of the enduring nature and transformative power of love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her second collection, McFadzean (Hacker Packer) charts a collision course of myth, tarot, religion, alchemy, art, and science. The drolleries of the title (and of the Shakespearean epigraph, in which Falstaff's patter is meant to distract from an unpaid pub tab) are grotesque creatures painted in the margins of medieval manuscripts. A surreal tour through great and obscure venues ("I facetime Nathan from the Italian/ Cabinet") conjures art and curiosities that accompany the phases of a breakup. Submerging heartbreak in drollery, she launches into poems such as "the Necropants" about a sorcerer who steals human legs. Scientific exhibits are stunning, if garish, diversions: "Who else would (tastefully) place/ a child's leg in the selfsame jar/ as scorpion? Ruysch did." But in the disorienting upheaval of a Bosch landscape, a split clarifies: "if the room is closing in it's because/ it's too small for the both of us now." From marvel to horror, the marriage falters and breaks. "Catalogue" deftly embodies separation through its opposite: "I was beside you at Mount Parnassus,/ beside you at the villa of Masks/ ...I was beside you at Auschwitz-Birkenau,/ beside you in the room of hair." One might question the occasional sporadic end rhyme, and a museum docent's obsession with detail. But most here is moving, compelling, and cheeringly idiosyncratic. Correction: The author's last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this review.
Customer Reviews
Interesting and Great book
The Orphan’s Song is great young adult novel. I recommend this book to people who love romance and twisted books. Violetta and Milo’s story is a wonderful tale of lies, secrets, and more.