Pisa, 1299. In the male-dominated world of Renaissance Italy, Netta is an ambitious young woman and the last in the line of a great family of sculptors and stone-carvers. Determined to throw off the shackles of marriage, Netta sets out to take up her family's legacy and work on fixing the city's leaning tower.
Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 12+
Mary Hoffman has written over 100 books for children. Amazing Grace, commended for the Kate Greenaway medal, and its sequels has sold over 1.5 million copies. As well as the successful Stravaganza sequence of teenage novels, translated into over thirty languages, The Great Big Books series of information books for younger readers, illustrated by Ros Asquith has done very well. The first, The Great Big Book of Families, won the inaugural SLA Information Book Award in the under 7s category.
Mary loves to write historical fiction and her books for Bloomsbury - The Falconer’s Knot, Troubadour and David - have been followed by Shakespeare’s Ghost and now The Ravenmaster’s Boy. She runs a widely-read blog called The History Girls: https://the-history-girls.blogspot.com
Mary is an Honorary Fellow of the Library Association (CILIP) and lives in Oxfordshire.
