Caprice and Rondo, Dorothy Dunnett
Caprice and Rondo, Dorothy Dunnett
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Caprice and Rondo

Author: Dorothy Dunnett

Narrator: John Banks

Unabridged: 26 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/27/2023

Synopsis

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents the House of Niccolò series. The time is the fifteenth century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire.

Winter 1474 finds Nicholas exiled in the frozen port of Danzig, Poland. His Machiavellian exploits in Scotland have cost him friends and family—not to mention countless riches. As the ice melts, temptations arise. Will he assist the Muslim Prince Uzum Hasan against the Turks? Will he lose himself among the secret, scented gardens of the Crimea in the arms of a close friend's bride? As Nicholas pursues his future, his estranged wife, Gelis, seeks the truth about his past, only to discover the secret identity of his latest comrade in arms-a tantalizing ghost from the past poised to deal him the crowning death blow.
Shimmering with detail, alive with intrigue, Caprice and Rondo is Dorothy Dunnett's quicksilver evocation of a world where joy is fleeting, love is unexpected, and truth the rarest commodity of all.

About Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett was born in 1923 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Her time at Gillespie's High School for Girls overlapped with that of the novelist Muriel Spark. From 1940-1955, she worked for the Civil Service as a press officer. In 1946, she married Alastair Dunnett, later editor of The Scotsman.

Dunnett started writing in the late 1950s. Her first novel, The Game of Kings, was published in the United States in 1961, and in the United Kingdom the year after. She published twenty-two books in total, including the six-part Lymond Chronicles and the eight-part Niccolo Series, and coauthored another volume with her husband. Also an accomplished professional portrait painter, Dunnett exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions and had portraits commissioned by a number of prominent public figures in Scotland.

She also led a busy life in public service, as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Library of Scotland, a trustee of the Scottish National War Memorial, and director of the Edinburgh Book Festival. She served on numerous cultural committees, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 1992 she was awarded the Office of the British Empire for services to literature. She died on November 9, 2001, at the age of seventy-eight.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Melindam on January 21, 2025

Despite liking the book very, very much, I think it's 4 stars only. All the usual Dunnett ingredients are there: fascinating historical details based on thorough research, an almost flawless mixing of real historical persons in the fictional narrative, an intriguing plot, BUT.... I still felt in a w......more

Goodreads review by Kizz on May 24, 2011

The Lymond Chronicles is a tighter, more riveting and satisfying series. The House of Niccolo is raw and messily complex and the characters are deeply flawed. In most of the books that's been frustrating. In this one it made the story richer.......more

Goodreads review by jrendocrine at least reading is good on May 22, 2018

This was my second read of the 7th in the series - I have read the others 3x -- C and R has been my least favorite. I read more carefully this time, for the history, and maybe a little for Gelis. my opinion has not altered. Adelina is not a great villian, just a sordid one. Duke Charles still was an......more

Goodreads review by Nicholas on November 18, 2017

[URL not allowed] Seventh volume in the series of eight about the life of medieval merchant Nicolas de Fleury (who has many other names), this one set in Poland, the Crimea, Moscow, Flanders and a brutal climax at the Battle of Nancy, and tying up some loose ends which had b......more

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