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Set in Renaissance Florence, this fantasy retelling of the life of Catherine de' Medici is as beautiful and as richly magical as the works of the great artists who people its pages. When Catherine was born, she was the sole legitimate heir to a great fortune and great power. But her father had died before she was born, and her mother died only a few weeks afterward, leaving the child to the guardianship of the pope and the fosterage of servants. From this beginning, Roessner tells an intimate story, of the servant families of the Medici who practice the secret magics of the kitchen and hearth. The Befanini family is bound to the Medici by blood and oaths, through children born on the wrong side of the blanket, recognized but not legitimate. Thomas, the son of Catherine's foster mother, is bound particularly to Catherine by magic and love, for he is destined to become Catherine's chef, and to that end he is not only taught the arts of the kitchen but is apprenticed out to a sculptor, and befriended by the great Michelangelo. But war intervenes in the charted courses of these children, and in the struggles between the pope and the German emperor and the city of Florence itself, their futures - and their very lives - are set at risk.

Tommaso Arista is the son of two of the most prestigious families of chefs to the household of Cosimo Ruggerio, noble astrologer to the Pope, and a powerful political figure in Florence and Rome. His mother is a Befanini -- the hereditary cooks of the de' Medici family, bound to the Dukes of Florence by centuries of both service and blood, family in all but the name.Catherine de' Medici is the only legitimate heir to the de' Medici fortune and titles. She is the Duchessina, but the title, and the incredible wealth, will go to the man who marries her. When her uncle and guardian, Pope Clement, recalls her to Rome to use her and her dowry as a precious pawn in his political maneuverings with the crowns of Europe, Catherine chooses Tommaso as her personal chef and head of her household -- he will go with her to serve and protect her, and to be her friend in a dangerous place.

Catherine has plans for her future, plans that do not include being sold as part of the Pope's treaty with France.