Danio Cerra's intelligence won him entry to a renowned school even though he was only the son of a tailor. He took service at the court of a ruling count, and soon learned why that man was known as the Beast. Danio's fate changed the moment he saw and recognized Adria Ripoli as she entered the count's chambers one autumn night, intending to kill. Born to power, Adria had chosen a life of danger and freedom. Years later, Danio looks back on the people...

Some said she was an elegant seductress. Others swore she was an incestuous murderess. It didn't matter what they called her. She was the most dangerous and sought-after woman in all of Rome. She was Lucrezia Borgia. Born into Rome's notorious Borgia family, young Lucrezia led a life colored by violence and betrayal. Now, married for the second time at just eighteen, she hopes for happiness with her handsome husband, Alfonso. But faced with brutal...

"It is 1502 and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, aged twenty-two--already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans--is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in...

In Renaissance Italy, Elisabetta longs for romance, and when Leonardo da Vinci introduces her to Guiliano de Medici, whose family rules Florence but is about to be deposed, she has no inkling of the romance--and sorrow--that will ensue.

A tale inspired by the lives of Borgia siblings Lucretia and Cesare traces the family's rise in the aftermath of Rodrigo Borgia's rise to the papacy, during which war, a terrifying sexual plague, and the family's notorious reputation forge an intimate bond between brother and sister.

Cousins by birth and married, respectively, to the debauched Duke of Milan and his visionary regent, Lodovico Sforza, Isabella of Aragon and Beatrice d'Este are women of great beauty, limitless ambition, and with the sort of amoral cunning necessary to survive the age of Machiavelli.