The Cameo Keeper by Deborah Swift

The Cameo Keeper by Deborah Swift

I’m delighted to be hosting The Cameo Keeper today on the Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour. (Isn’t it a beautiful cover?)

I’m doing an excerpt, but first, the description:

Rome 1644: A Novel of Love, Power, and Poison

Remember tonight... for it is the beginning of always ― Dante Alighieri

In the heart of Rome, the conclave is choosing a new Pope, and whoever wins will determine the fate of the Eternal City.

Astrologer Mia and her fiancé Jacopo, a physician at the Santo Spirito Hospital, plan to marry, but the election result is a shock and changes everything.

As Pope Innocent X takes the throne, he brings along his sister-in-law, the formidable Donna Olimpia Maidalchini, known as La Papessa – the female Pope. When Mia is offered a position as her personal astrologer, she and Jacopo find themselves on opposite sides of the most powerful family in Rome.

Mia is determined to protect her mother, Giulia Tofana, a renowned poisoner. But with La Papessa obsessed with bringing Giulia to justice, Mia and Jacopo's love is put to the ultimate test.

As the new dawn of Renaissance medicine emerges, Mia must navigate the dangerous political landscape of Rome while trying to protect her family and her heart. Will she be able to save her mother, or will she lose everything she holds dear?

For fans of "The Borgias" and "The Crown," this gripping tale of love, power, and poison will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Praise:

'historical fiction that is brisk, fresh and bristling with intrigue' 
~ Bookmarked Reviews ★★★★★

Universal Buy Link: https://mybook.to/CameoKeeper

The Excerpt (number 3 if you’re following the tour)

Rome, September 1644

Around the edge of the piazza the purveyors of predictions had ceased their trade. Mia had no clients; all business was in hiatus. It would be today, she was certain. A tingle ran up her spine. Today there would be a decision and the clang of St Peter’s bells would make the crowd cover their ears, and the name of the new Pope would be on everyone’s lips.

How did the people know? They could feel it by the trembling in the air, the ripeness of it. Mia had consulted the signs in the stars and found this to be the ordained date, the one where everything in the heavens aligned; after all, the city had waited more than a month since the August heat, and now even the brokers were silent, waiting to hear if their wagers would pay them or bankrupt them. They’d had enough of the black smoke; everyone dreaded more of that.

The cardinals in their red robes had sailed from all over Christendom. Once gathered together, they’d sworn the oath of secrecy, and at the Latin command extra omnes, the world had been shut out, because inside the secret cloisters of the Vatican, the cardinals were electing their new Pope. Mia clutched Jacopo’s arm as they waited in the crush with all the other citizens whose livelihoods depended on the outcome of this election.

 ‘Let’s hope it’s the end for the Barberini family,’ Jacopo whispered.

Pope Urban VIII had been dead since July, but his brothers and nephews, all appointed by him as cardinals, had hired mercenaries to bully people into supporting their candidate Cardinal Sacchetti, in accordance with the wishes of the French.

 ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Mia said. ‘Antonio Barberini’s let it be known that he’s prepared to die in there before he’ll let the Spanish, or anyone but Sacchetti, win.’

 Jacopo made a face. ‘Their scaremongering has only increased opposition to him, as if there were not already enough. No-one likes to be bullied. There’ll be an underhand deal going on in there somehow for the Barberinis to have free passage somewhere. They know they can’t win and they’ll be looking to save their skins. People can smell the stink of Barberini corruption from the city gates, and they’re looking for someone who can heal those wounds.’

 Near the front of the crowd, the ambassadors, resplendent in their velvets and brocades, stood inside their circles of condottiere, their bodyguards – French on one side, Spanish on the other, the men who’d been at war with each other for thirty years. So for weeks there’d been riots and fights over who would win this election, and which of the two factions would have the right to plunder the furniture and fittings in the dead Pope’s cell and palace.

Mia’s eyes were fixed on the loggia overlooking the square, waiting for the carpenters to start demolishing the wooden walls that had sealed the conclave shut – the first sign that a new Pope had been elected.

Beneath it sat two groups of dignitaries on raised platforms. On one side the Barberinis, a group of restless shifting men, and on the other the Pamphilis. Mia’s eye was drawn to this group because seated in the centre of the group was a woman, a widow by the look of her, veiled, but absolutely still.

 ‘Who is she?’ she asked Jacopo, pointing.

 ‘Donna Olimpia Maidalchini. Pamphili’s sister-in-law. She’s—’

 His words were cut off. The clamour of the bells was as sudden as a thunderclap. The crowd let out a collective gasp and the pigeons on the roof wheeled away like papers in the wind. Behind Mia, a man bellowed and surged bodily forward, so Mia had to clutch her skirts to keep from falling, but she clung to Jacopo’s arm as she was dragged into the crush. An eruption of noise, followed by a cheer that seemed to rock the ground.

 The crowd pulled them along. Mia craned over their heads to see men with sledgehammers splintering the wood in their haste to smash down the boards, for already a tide of people were thrusting towards the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica, to see who would become Pope, leader of Rome and the whole Christian world.

Author Bio

Deborah Swift Author

Deborah Swift is the author of twenty novels of historical fiction.

Her Renaissance novel in this series, The Poison Keeper, was recently voted Best Book of the Decade by the Wishing Shelf Readers Award. Her WW2 novel Past Encounters was the winner of the BookViral Millennium Award, and is one of seven books set in the WW2 era.

Deborah lives in the North of England close to the mountains and the sea.

Author Links:

Website: www.deborahswift.com

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