In this captivating debut, Christi Phillips blends fact and fiction, suspense and sensuality into a vibrant, richly imagined novel in which a modern historian uncovers a Courtesan's secret role in a shocking conspiracy o...In this captivating debut, Christi Phillips blends fact and fiction, suspense and sensuality into a vibrant, richly imagined novel in which a modern historian uncovers a Courtesan's secret role in a shocking conspiracy of seventeenth-century venice. Claire donovan always dreamed of visiting venice, though not as a chaperone for a surly teenager.