Annemarie Schiavi Pedersen’s stories are a rare chance for readers to visit the Italian Renaissance, a time of artistic enlightenment and medieval darkness. Those passions create a dangerous mix for her sensual and sometimes scandalous characters.
Annemarie studied journalism and history at the University of Michigan and is an award-winning author, journalist, and editor. She proudly shares a bloodline with Petrarch, the Renaissance poet whose lyrical prose about smiles and eyes inspired Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
Annemarie and her husband Brian live in Metro Detroit. Between working on her stories and texting all day with the rest of her family—her three kids, their spouses, and the bellissimi grandchildren—she’s constantly writing.
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Renaisance Romantics…Because History Has Hotties, too…blog at annemarieschiavipedersen.wordpress.com
Celestina’s Burnings
Italy, 1491. When Celestina DiCapria, at the end of her requisite year-long mourning for her murdered father, hears the bell of Montanina ring not for death but for the youth of Florence to rise up against the plague of witchcraft, she puts aside her dreams of adventure and a hunky scalpellino to answer the call. The formidable Austrian Friar Thane Brucker and his holy army are Celestina’s path to vengeance on finding the witch who killed her father and left his soul to rot in purgatory.
Rinaldo SanGiorgio, a rock cutter from the hills above Florence, yearns to break free from his family’s quarry and paint frescos. When he finds his muse in Celestina, he vows to help with her fight—until the fervent religious mob destroys the art he loves. Rinaldo is torn between saving the Renaissance’s greatest art and his greatest love.
But when Celestina is herself accused of witchcraft, Rinaldo realizes flesh and bone are more important than plaster and pigments. Can Celestina and Rinaldo overcome the secrets and lies of a jilted lover, a lustful friar, a powerful monsignor, and an overprotective nonna before Montanina rings for her?
