In Lucia's Eyes

Following his hugely acclaimed debut, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (“Fascinatingly ambitious . . . Haunting” --The New York Times), Arthur Japin’s magnificently imagined second novel takes us into the most rarified and the most sordid realms of eighteenth-century Europe in the company of an extraordinary woman.

She is a servant girl in an Italian manor house, educated by her lascivious lord, engaged to a young man by the name of Giacomo–and suddenly disfigured by the pox. Fleeing in shame and without warning, piercing the heart of her beloved, Lucia faces a bewildering new world alone. She will move across Europe for sixteen years–from Naples to Venice, Paris, and Amsterdam–working as a housekeeper, a lady’s companion, and finally, as a much-sought-after courtesan. In salons, opera boxes, and boudoirs, her curiosity and intelligence are nurtured by the revolutionary new ideas of the Enlightenment, passionately debated in spheres of society she has never known before. But not until her accidental reunion with Giacomo Casanova–now the tragic figure of infamous legend–will the lessons of her astonishing journey be revealed to her, and with them, her truest self.

In Lucia’s Eyes is a rich and vibrant evocation of a time past, and an emotionally daring story of the individual spirit’s transformation by love.