The Colour Storm
Winner of the HWA Gold Crown Award 2023Select a format:
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
The new spellbinding and enchanting story from the internationally acclaimed author of Tomorrow
Renaissance Venice is a furnace of ideas and ambition. Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary colour. Yet artist Giorgione 'Zorzo' Barbarelli's career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. When Zorzo hears a rumour of a mysterious, other-worldly new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the colour and secure his name in history.
Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man's wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant's favour. Instead he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across Europe and a marriage coming apart inside one of the floating city's most illustrious palazzos.
As the water levels rise and the plague creeps ever closer, an increasingly desperate Zorzo isn't sure whom he can trust. Will Sybille prove to be the key to Zorzo's success, or the reason for his downfall?
Atmospheric and suspenseful, and filled with the famous artists of the era, The Colour Storm is an intoxicating story of art and ambition, love and obsession in Renaissance Venice - capturing a moment of artistic invention that echoes through the centuries.
'Addictive, ambitious and knife sharp. A compelling thriller and a celebration of art. Ravishing'
Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
'An epic tale of love, of courage, of hope' Evening Standard
'Bask in the brilliance' The Mail on Sunday
© Damian Dibben 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
The new spellbinding and enchanting story from the internationally acclaimed author of Tomorrow
Renaissance Venice is a furnace of ideas and ambition. Artists flock here, not just for wealth and fame, but for revolutionary colour. Yet artist Giorgione 'Zorzo' Barbarelli's career hangs in the balance. Competition is fierce, and his debts are piling up. When Zorzo hears a rumour of a mysterious, other-worldly new pigment, brought to Venice by the richest man in Europe, he sets out to acquire the colour and secure his name in history.
Winning a commission to paint a portrait of the man's wife, Sybille, Zorzo thinks he has found a way into the merchant's favour. Instead he finds himself caught up in a conspiracy that stretches across Europe and a marriage coming apart inside one of the floating city's most illustrious palazzos.
As the water levels rise and the plague creeps ever closer, an increasingly desperate Zorzo isn't sure whom he can trust. Will Sybille prove to be the key to Zorzo's success, or the reason for his downfall?
Atmospheric and suspenseful, and filled with the famous artists of the era, The Colour Storm is an intoxicating story of art and ambition, love and obsession in Renaissance Venice - capturing a moment of artistic invention that echoes through the centuries.
'Addictive, ambitious and knife sharp. A compelling thriller and a celebration of art. Ravishing'
Rachel Joyce, bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
'An epic tale of love, of courage, of hope' Evening Standard
'Bask in the brilliance' The Mail on Sunday
© Damian Dibben 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022
Reviews
A glorious, exuberant summer read. Dibben's triumph is the character of Zorzo, a buoyant, loveable guide to the grandeur and the dangers of Renaissance Venice
The Times
