The Color Storm: A Novel of Renaissance Venice

by Damian Dibben

Overview

*The Gold Crown Best Historical Novel of the Year*

Enter the world of Renaissance Venice, where the competition for fame and fortune can mean life or death…

Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary color. Yet artist Giorgione “Zorzo” Barbarelli’s career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. When Zorzo hears a rumor of a mysterious new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the color and secure his name in history.

Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man’s wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant’s favor. Instead he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across Europe and a marriage coming apart inside one of the floating city’s most illustrious palazzi.

As the water levels rise and the plague creeps ever closer, an increasingly desperate Zorzo isn’t sure whom he can trust. Will Sybille prove to be the key to Zorzo’s success or the reason for his downfall?

Atmospheric and suspenseful and filled with the famous artists of the era, The Color Storm is an intoxicating story of art and ambition, love and obsession.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335015938
Publisher:	Hanover Square Press
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	30,538
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

DAMIAN DIBBEN is the creator of the internationally acclaimed children’s book series the History Keepers, translated into 26 languages in over 40 countries. Previously, he worked as a screenwriter, and actor, on projects as diverse as The Phantom of the Opera and Puss in Boots and Young Indiana Jones. He lives, facing St Paul’s Cathedral, on London’s Southbank with his partner Ali and dog Dudley.

Editorial Reviews

"The Color Storm is an engaging thriller and a compelling exploration of an artist's obsession with love and color." -Sunday Times

"As with all intoxicating quest stories vividly told, The Color Storm by Damian Dibben, transports us to a heady other world, where it’s possible to feel the sirocco winds whistling across Venice and bathe in the cerulean skies of the Italian Renaissance. With master artists, Giorgione, Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci along for the ride, the reader will want to walk and then run to join a fierce competition to create beauty anew and discover a color so rare and sublime it’s said to come from the stars.”—Lisa Rochon, author of Tuscan Daughter

"Ravishing, addictive, knife-sharp, ambitious, and singing with detail, The Color Storm had me in its grip from the first moment I began reading. Here is a compelling thriller that takes us to the heart of sixteenth century Venice where the world’s most famous painters compete to win the greatest commission of their lives, and to find a rumored new color that will make their names immortal, while the threat of the plague comes ever closer. There is so much to think about and relish. Not simply the story itself—with all its glorious twists and turns—but the search to express ourselves. A celebration of art and a hymn to color." —Rachel Joyce, New York Times bestselling author of Miss Benson’s Beetle

“The Color Storm takes readers on a thrilling, murderous journey through the serpentine waters of High Renaissance Venice as one of art history’s most gifted but often overlooked painters—Giorgione—searches for love, fame, and, most importantly, color. Written with language as vibrant as a Giorgione masterpiece, The Color Storm is for lovers of art, Italy, and page-turning plot.” —Stephanie Storey, author of Raphael, Painter in Rome

“An intoxicating and illuminating tale, bathed in colour, passion and ambition...a must for lovers of Renaissance art and the wonders of sixteenth century Venice.” – S. W. Perry, bestselling author of The Jackdaw Mysteries

“A vivid imagining of the artistic world of Renaissance Venice. There is an incredible charm in its depiction of the great painters of the period with all their flesh-and-blood idiosyncrasies and flaws. The life of the studio and the supreme importance of colour in all the essentials of its make up is rendered absolutely convincingly. The work has all the more emotional power as it focusses on a lesser known artist as he negotiates the precarious life of his city alongside competitors, those whose names have resounded through history.” - S. G. Maclean, author of The Seeker

“A terrific book...Absorbing, exciting and, dare I say it, colorful. An original tale told beautifully.” ―A.D. Swanston, author of the Thomas Hill series

"An intoxicating story about an incredible period in history."—The Sun

"Compelling and spellbinding."—Stylist USA

"Mystery! Conspiracy! Renaissance Venice! Damian Dibben's new thriller has 'superior beach read' written all over it.―S Times Style

"In The Colour Storm, Daniel Dibben transports us to Giorgione’s Renaissance Venice, at the peak of her artistic headiness ... [An] elegant thriller."―Perspective

From the Publisher

Narrator Ben Allen fully engages listeners with this intriguing story about the art world in Renaissance Venice. Zorzo, an up-and-coming painter, stakes his life and career on his obsessive desire to obtain a mysterious color that no one has ever seen before. Allen deftly distinguishes the many interesting people of all ages who inhabit Zorzo’s world. Famous artists of the period wander in and out, mixing with apprentices and various scoundrels. Allen is especially adept with his understated handling of women’s voices. His voice intensifies the drama as Zorzo gets drawn into the dangerous world of the beguiling Sybille and her ruthless husband. Listeners will be as eager as Zorzo to finally encounter the wonderful new color. J.E.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

Narrator Ben Allen fully engages listeners with this intriguing story about the art world in Renaissance Venice. Zorzo, an up-and-coming painter, stakes his life and career on his obsessive desire to obtain a mysterious color that no one has ever seen before. Allen deftly distinguishes the many interesting people of all ages who inhabit Zorzo’s world. Famous artists of the period wander in and out, mixing with apprentices and various scoundrels. Allen is especially adept with his understated handling of women’s voices. His voice intensifies the drama as Zorzo gets drawn into the dangerous world of the beguiling Sybille and her ruthless husband. Listeners will be as eager as Zorzo to finally encounter the wonderful new color. J.E.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile