A sweeping saga of intrigue and romance set during the Italian Renaissance and told through the eyes of Grazia dei Rossi, a young Jewish woman torn between duty and forbidden romance, who wins our hearts with her recorded secrets of love.

Grazia dei Rossi, private secretary to the world-renowned Isabella d’Este, is the daughter of an eminent Jewish banker, the wife of the pope’s Jewish physician, and the lover of a Christian prince. In a “secret book,” written as a legacy for her son, she records her struggles to choose between the seductions of the Christian world and a return to the family, traditions, and duties to her Jewish roots. As she re-creates Renaissance Italy in captivating detail, Jacqueline Park gives us a timeless portrait of a brave and brilliant woman trapped in an unforgiving, inflexible society.

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JACQUELINE PARK (1925–2018) was the bestselling author of the Grazia dei Rossi Trilogy (The Secret Book of Grazia dei Rossi: Book 1, The Legacy of Grazia dei Rossi: Book 2, and Son of Two Fathers: Book 3). She was also the founding chairman of the Dramatic Writing Program and professor emerita at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

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