“The Marriage Portrait”

Once I find an author I like, I become a repeat customer.  Maggie O’Farrell lured me in with “Hamnet” and she didn’t disappoint with her latest novel, “The Marriage Portrait”.  Loosely based on a daughter of the House of Medici in Renaissance Italy, the young protagonist, Lucrezia is forced to marry a much older duke.  Between her strong sense of self and his shady behaviors, a tension builds throughout the story.  The reader has no idea how nor when this tension will come to a head and that is the genius of O’Farrell. Plus, her truly beautiful prose makes you feel as if you are transported back in time living among the characters in the 1500’s.