Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

I’m featuring The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier. It’s a novel that follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance-era Italy to the present day. I’ve read several of her books and I’m hoping to enjoy this one as much as the others.

If you skim a flat stone skilfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands.

With that in mind, now replace water with time.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, but she is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. You grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

‘How dare you come looking for me in Venice,’ he began in a low voice that rapidly grew louder, ‘as if I were a child who needed shepherding. You embarrassed the family name and ruined our relationship with our merchant. If the Rosso business goes under, it will be your fault.

Description:

Tracy Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is vivid, inventive, spellbinding: a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.

Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?