Faces Under Water: The Secret Books of Venus: Book 1 - Softcover

Lee, Tanith

3.65

326 ratings by Goodreads

9781585672455: Faces Under Water: The Secret Books of Venus: Book 1

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585672459 ISBN 13: 9781585672455

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2002

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In the hedonistic atmosphere of an eighteenth-century Venice Carnival, gaiety turns deadly when Furian Furiano happens upon a mask of Apollo floating in the murky waters of the canals. The mask hides a sinister art, and Furian finds himself trapped in a bizarre tangle of love, obsession, and evil, stumbling upon a macabre society of murderers. The beautiful but elusive Eurydiche holds the key to these murders and leads him further into a labyrinth of black magic and ancient alchemy. Why do secrets from Furian’s past seem tied to the mysterious Eurydiche? In Tanith Lee’s brilliantly imagined world of violence and terror, Furian must find a way to survive and stem the obsession driving him toward his hidden destiny.

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Review:

It's no surprise that Tanith Lee has won the August Derleth Award and several World Fantasy Awards. She writes elegantly of love and lust, hatred and obsession, in decadent, morally ambiguous, fascinating novels and short stories that owe more to Angela Carter and Oscar Wilde than to any established tradition of fantasy.

Lee finds the perfect setting for her rich style and dark visions in Venus, an alternate-history, 18th-century Venice caught up in a fevered Carnival that requires everyone to either wear masks or be killed. When Furian Furiano, searching for bodies in the canals, finds instead a floating mask of Apollo, he becomes entangled in the complex plots and counterplots of warring religions and the secret societies of powerful guilds. And he encounters the beautiful Eurydiche, who has been cursed from birth with silence and an immobile face that make her both a powerful symbol of the historic role of women and an irresistible, inscrutable, and possibly fatal attraction for the hot-blooded young Furian.

This fantasy murder mystery, Faces Under Water, is Book I of the Secret Books of Venus, but its plot is self-contained and complete. This is no fat fantasy; rather, it is a properly proportioned novel of somewhat more than 200 pages, a length that displays Tanith Lee's considerable gift at its finest. --Cynthia Ward

About the Author:

Tanith Lee is one of the leading fantasy authors working today. She has written over 50 novels and short story collections, among them the bestselling Flat Earth Series. She has won the World Fantasy Award numerous times as well as the August Derleth Award.

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