Emma Harcourt

Forbidden friendship, political conspiracy, and incendiary passion draw Australian woman Annie Brand deep into the glamour and turmoil of 1920s Shanghai. Leaving behind the loneliness and trauma of her past in country Australia, Annie Brand arrives in the midst of the political upheaval and glittering international society of Shanghai in the 1920s. Journeying up the Yangtze with her new husband,...

A thirst for learning and a passion for astronomy draw an extraordinary young woman deep into the intellectual maelstrom, political complexities, and religious extremism of Renaissance Florence. This beautifully crafted novel will appeal to readers of Karen Brooks' The Good Wife of Bath and Pip Williams' Dictionary of Lost Words. The Brightest Star is set in 1496, the height of...