Four starred reviews! A “quietly triumphant” ( Horn Book Magazine ) and atmospheric YA story of romance, mystery, and power about a young woman discovering her strength in lush, sultry Venice—from the Printz Honor–winning author of A Heart in a Body in the World. When Charlotte wins a scholarship to a writing workshop in Venice with the charismatic and brilliant Luca Bruni, it’s a dream come true. Writing is her passion, she loves Bruni’s books, and going to that romantic and magical sinking city gives her the chance to solve a long-time family mystery about a Venetian poet deep in their lineage, Isabella Di Angelo, who just might be the real author of a very famous poem. Bruni’s villa on the eerie island of La Calamita is extravagant—lush beyond belief, and the other students are both inspiring and intimidating. Venice itself is beautiful, charming, and seductive, but so is Luca Bruni. As his behavior becomes increasingly unnerving, and as Charlotte begins to unearth the long-lost work of Isabella with the help of sweet, smart Italian Dante, other things begin to rise, too—secrets about the past…and secrets about the present. As the events of the summer build to a shattering climax, Charlotte will be forced to confront some dark truths about the history of powerful men—and about the determination of creative girls. Deb Caletti is the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of over sixteen books for adults and young adults, including Honey, Baby, Sweetheart , a finalist for the National Book Award; A Heart in a Body in the World , a Michael L. Printz Honor Book; Girl, Unframed ; and One Great Lie . Her books have also won the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and numerous other state awards and honors, and she was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. She lives with her family in Seattle. Chapter One Chapter One Lucchesia Sbarra, poet. Published Rime, and possibly another volume, both lost. (1576–unknown) Picture it—the exact coordinates where Charlotte’s life will change and never change back: a table in the Seattle Public Library. On it—the book Biographical Encyclopedia of Literature: Sixteenth Century . Above—an angled ceiling of enormous glass panes, which makes the library feel like a space colony of the future. Just ahead—yellow escalators and green elevators, shades of disco-era neon that sometimes give Charlotte a migraine. Now picture Charlotte herself—her long dark braid is over one shoulder. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, zipped all the way up, which looks kind of goofy, but who cares—she’s always cold. She’s trying to write a report on a long-ago female Renaissance poet Isabella di Angelo but can only find information about the guy everyone already knows about, Antonio Tasso. There’s tons and tons of stuff about Tasso and his poetry. But all she’s been able to unearth about Isabella di Angelo is this one fact, repeated again and again. Charlotte’s brown eyes stare down at it: Tasso’s longtime paramour. Paramour : old-fashioned word for someone Tasso had sex with. Charlotte’s good friend Yasmin is across from her, studying for her macroeconomics test and sucking on sour apple Jolly Ranchers. Yas loves those. Whenever she leans over to talk to Charlotte, her breath is a great burst of fake-apple sweet. Charlotte’s boyfriend, Adam, is there too. He sits to her right, his knees touching hers under the table, the sleeves of his hoodie pushed up to his elbows. He’s always touching her like this, like she’s his lucky rock, or like he’s worried she’ll run off if he doesn’t hang on. Nate sprawls in the chair next to Yasmin. They’ve been together since sophomore year, and Nate has stopped working out, and he has a little splootch of belly over his stomach, and he’s on his third day in that Kurt Cobain T-shirt, and this bothers Yasmin because he doesn’t seem to be trying anymore. Also, his pits have a slightly tangy odor, which is a constant problem for Yas. It’s the end of spring quarter, right before break, and Charlotte and Yasmin have serious stuff to do, because they’re perpetual overachievers with lots of AP classes, and graduation is coming. Charlotte’s got this term paper, which is going nowhere, and Yasmin’s final is going to be brutal. Adam and Nate are just fucking around, though. Nate made a triangle football out of a note card, and Adam has his hands up like goalposts, and they’re flicking it back and forth and making whoops of victory and Aw! s of defeat, and they’re basically being way too loud for a library. A guy with a big beard and a backpack scowls at them. A little kid stares, wide-eyed, like they’re a riveting puppet show, maybe wishing he could get away with stuff like that. “Guys, stop ,” Yasmin says. “Show some maturity .” She sounds like her mother right then, Charlotte thinks. Yasmin’s mom is very serious, and always on her case about her grades even though she gets straight As. But Charlotte wants them to