Married to the Adriatic

About this book

Venice, 1899. Napoleon drowned a century ago, and the Most Serene Republic still stands, with its Doge, its Council of Ten and a strange custom: each Ascension Day a woman is chosen by lot to be the Bride of the Sea. She wears the Doge's ring for a year and must stay untouched, because the fishermen believe the tides obey her. This year the lot falls on Teodora Vianello, a sharp-tongued mirror-silverer from Murano who wants nothing to do with it. Then a Dutch engineer, hired to build iron gates against the Adriatic, mocks the Bride in the newspaper, and Teodora writes back. Every letter she sends is read by the Ten. So the two of them invent a language for what cannot be said, in a city that reads everything. But who chose the Bride, and why?