Before Princess Margaret, before Duchess Meghan, there was Princess Louise: royal rebel. As the fourth daughter of the perpetually in-mourning Queen Victoria, Princess Louise's life is more a gilded prison than a fairy tale. Expected to sit quietly next to her mother with down-cast eyes, Louise vows to escape the stultifying royal court. Blessed with beauty, artistic talent, and a common touch, she creates a life outside the walled-in existence of the palace grounds by attending the National Art Training School-where she shockingly learns to sculpt nude models while falling passionately in love with famed sculptor Joseph Edgar Boehm. But even as Louise cultivates a life outside the palace, she is constantly reminded that even royal rebels must heed the call of duty-and for a princess that means marriage. Refusing to leave England, she agrees to a match with the Duke of Argyll, and although her heart belongs to another, she is determined to act out her public role perfectly, even if her private life teeters on the brink of scandal. But when a near fatal accident forces Louise back under her mother's iron rule, she realizes she must choose: give in to the grief of lost love or find the strength to fight for her unconventional life.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic and Velvet Was the Night comes a dreamy reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico. 'ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022' - She Reads 'The imagination of Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a thing of wonder, restless and romantic, fearless in the face of genre, embracing the polarities of storytelling' - New York Times Carlota Moreau: A young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatan peninsula, the only daughter of a genius - or a madman. Montgomery Laughton: A melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol, an outcast who assists Dr Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas with plentiful coffers. The hybrids: The fruits of the Doctor's labour, destined to blindly obey their creator while they remain in the shadows, are a motley group of part-human, part-animal monstrosities. All of them are living in a perfectly balanced and static world which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau's patron - who will, unwittingly, begin a dangerous chain-reaction. For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle passions may ignite.

The Rebirth of Venus is the last part of The Botticelli Trilogy, following A Tabernacle for the Sun and Pallas and the Centaur. Set in the 1480s and 90s, it tells the story of murder, not only of the leading men of the age, but of the age itself, the Renaissance dying in Savonarola's bonfires. Tommaso de' Maffei was charged with the task of taking the Platonic wisdom to England, but in England he finds he has lost touch with the truth of his philosophy, and he returns to Italy in the early 16th century to find what, if anything, survives from the golden age he lived through.