The Puffin

Synopsis

A dazzling tale of passion and resistance – told with heart, wit and feathers.

‘Great Historical Novels to Read This October’ —The Times

Venice, 1817. A disfigured traitor. A revolutionary milliner. A sadistic assassin. A poet. And a puffin. When a fingerless nobleman seizes a puffin that arrives mysteriously at the Rialto Market, he triggers a cascade of events that will embroil all the central characters.

The puffin’s fervid character and his matrimonial tragedies put the bird on a collision course with the worst and best of humanity. Alva the milliner fights for freedom from Venice’s Habsburg occupiers. Her brother Favaloro smuggles cod and sedition from the Lofoten Islands. Brother and sister join the revolutionary sect of the Carbonari, plotting to ransom a Habsburg princess. And both fall in love with Tommaso, who walks with a crutch but whose poetry overthrows hearts.

Betrayals shatter all their plans and desires. Tommaso falls prey to a ruthless seducer. Alva must sacrifice herself to save Favaloro. As the Habsburgs send the poet to the scaffold, the puffin’s fate hangs in the balance and the assassin’s identity is shockingly revealed.

Michelle Lovric is a novelist, poet and environmentalist who lives in London and Venice. Her work explores the history of medicine, trauma and art, with Venice as both protagonist and setting. Her adult fiction includes The Remedy, longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Although it stands completely alone, The Puffin takes off where the author’s acclaimed novel The Book of Human Skin ends and welcomes back its most memorable character.

A genre-defying literary epic fusing the politics of coercion and surrender with the fire of resistance – set in a vividly imagined 19th-century Venice. Featuring a cast of unforgettable characters – not all of them human – this novel explores love, faith, language and consciousness with lyricism and midnight-black humour.

Reviews of This Book

‘Eight Great Historical Novels to Read This October If the plot sounds bonkers in précis, that is because it is entirely mad. But Lovric is a wildly inventive writer, who commits to her melodramatic premise and carries the reader along with sizzling prose. Hugely enjoyable.’ —Antonia Senior, The Times

‘As with the author’s previous novels the going soon gets spicy and faint hearts are advised to have a glass of milk to hand. Venice is presented fragrantly too, especially as there are a lot of fish around – our heroine lives near the fish market. Much violence and many victims ensue before a broadly happy ending. Along the way relatable relationships and inevitable evil keep us reading and, as is not unusual with this author, we finish the book breathless and sated. We are all puffins now.’ —Fictional Cities

‘Marvellous milliner Alva has revolution on her mind. Grieved by the Austrian influence on her native Venice, she’s joined the secretive Carbonari, smuggling maps and bullets in her wondrous hats in the hope of fomenting insurrection. It’s an audacious concept, but then this is a deliciously audacious novel. There’s a plot to kidnap a princess, the walls of the city are covered in graffiti, there’s heartbreak and betrayal.’ —Eithne Farry, Daily Mail

Praise for Previous Work

‘(On The Book of Human Skin) If it doesn’t scoop all the prizes, we live in an unjust world. It’s an absolute corker … It’s years since I enjoyed a novel this much – or felt such strong envy of an author for having the breadth and richness of imagination to create such a world’ —A.N. Wilson

‘(On The Book of Human Skin) A witty, exciting, over-the-top page-turner which becomes increasingly addictive … Quite unlike anything else around – and all the better for that.’ —Daily Mail

‘(On The Book of Human Skin) Rich, involving and brilliantly imagined.’ —Fanny Blake, Women and Home Magazine

‘(On The Book of Human Skin) This is, essentially, a love story told by a delightfully riotous collection of characters and voices … Fantastically gripping.’ —Eithne Farry, Marie Claire

‘(On The Book of Human Skin) Colourful, intoxicating and brutal.’ —She

‘Michelle Lovric is devilishly clever, fiendishly comic and generally just an irresistible novelist.’ —Elizabeth Gilbert