She wants the women to wish they were her, and the men to want to be with her. She wants to be the object of everyone’s desire. It matters not the cost of obtaining and maintaining this beauty. Ghostanza needs to present the perfect face, the perfect image. Of course, La Perfetta is only the name that Flavia, and others, use to refer to her. If the sky had been empty, everything would have been different.”Īnd so Flavia becomes the ornatrix for a widow, La Perfetta, who resides in the convent as well, seeking relief from the intrusions of the world. “It happened because Mona Grazia saw a bird in flight.

To her mother, an ugly, purplish reminder. The sin she has committed to be sent away at her mother’s insistence is having a birthmark that resembles a bird in flight. Rich in description and character, Kate Howard’s stunning novel is painted against a vivid historical landscape with themes and characters relevant today, tackling issues of belonging, female identity, and the perception of beauty.įlavia Bartofolo is banished from Casa Nascosta, her home that she’s shared with her mother, father and sister all her life until the night she is sent to the Santa Guiliana convent, just outside Perugia. And she soon finds that with beauty in her grasp, in the form of the poisonous but stunning white lead cerussa, Flavia will do anything to leave her marked face behind. When Ghostanza claims Flavia as her ornatrix-her personal hairdresser and handmaid-Flavia is pulled into a world of glamor and concealment where admiration is everything and perfection is the ultimate, elusive goal. Soon she finds that another exile dwells in the convent: a former Venetian courtesan named Ghostanza whose ostentatious appearance clashes with the otherwise austere convent and sparks gossip throughout the town.

Lonely and alienated even from her family, she sabotages her sister’s wedding in a fit of jealous rage and is exiled to serve in the convent of Santa Giuliana.

In this exquisitely dark debut, Kate Howard delivers a stirring tale on the cost of beauty, packed with suspense and period detail worthy of Kate Mosse, Jessie Burton, and Tracy Chevalier.Ĭursed from birth by the bird-shaped blemish across her face, Flavia spends much of her life hidden from the outside world.

Ornatrix 7