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A Somershill Manor Novel
by S. D. Sykes
Young Lord Somershill flees England for the wonders of Venice, where he becomes involved in a bizarre murder investigation that plunges him into the depths of this secretive medieval city.
It's 1358, and young Oswald de Lacy, Lord Somershill, is delayed in Venice as he awaits a pilgrim ship to the Holy Land. While the city is besieged by the King of Hungary, Oswald stays at the house of an English merchant, and soon comes under the spell of this decadent and dazzling island state that sits on the edge of Europe - where East meets West.
But Oswald has secrets. He is running away from something in England - a shadow that still haunts him, no matter how much he consoles himself with the delights of Venice. When he finds a dead man at the carnival, he is dragged into a murder investigation that draws him deep into the intrigues of this paranoid, mysterious city.
From the dungeons of the Doge's Palace to the convent-brothel of Santa Lucia, Oswald must search for a murderer in this bewildering maze of alleys and canals. When he comes up against the feared Signori di Notte, the secret police, Oswald learns that he is not the only one with something to hide. Everyone is watching (or trailing) someone else; and nobody in Venice is who they appear to be. Masks, it seems, are not only for the carnival.
"Starred Review. Sykes's gamble in putting Oswald in unfamiliar terrain pays off, as she again blends a detailed immersion in the time period with a clever mystery plot line." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. We are plunged into Sykes' rich soup of Venetian intrigue; period detail; and increasingly intricate plotting, all with the deeply realized character of Lord Somershill fighting his own demons while investigating. A brilliant addition to the Somershill Manor Novels." - Booklist
"A Venice whose ancient glories still survive today provides the background for an investigation whose solution is secondary to identifying the cause of Oswald's angst." - Kirkus
This information about City of Masks was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
S.D. Sykes has always been a storyteller – even as a child – writing her first book at the age of six and insisting that it was typed up and bound! During her career in marketing and copywriting, she studied for an MA in Writing from Sheffield Hallam, and then went on to have Arts Council funding for screenplay development. She finished her first book, Plague Land, after attending the course in novel-writing at literary agents Curtis Brown.
She has lived in Somerset, London, Southampton, Manchester and now the Weald of Kent. Her influences are gothic literature, film, nature, history and her large and mildly eccentric family.
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