“Masterful….A wild and exuberant ride through the cultural history of the first half of the twentieth century….A hugely empathetic tale of a woman’s becoming, a propulsive read that is cinematic in scope. Come for the art history, stay for the great sex!”

— David Young, award-winning playwright of Glenn and Inexpressible Island

“Lisa Rochon writes with beauty, clarity, and intelligence in this finely imagined, skilfully researched novel. ..Marvellous and moving, this is a story of love, sacrifice, moral courage, and art.”

— Cathy Marie Buchanan New York Times bestselling author of The Painted Girls

Launched in 2026, featured on CTV National Television, The Globe and Mail newspaper, The National Post, Chatelaine magazine, and Bonjour Paris (France Media), The Paris Thief is a page-turning story of crushing love, betrayal and fearless sacrifice, and one woman’s complicated connection to the world’s greatest masterpiece.

Beatrice, the main character in Tuscan Daughter, aspires to be an artist but she is too poor to afford paints and paper. Alone, her father murdered, her mother disappeared, she graffities on the stonewalls of Renaissance Florence and walks from her hilltown village to sell olive oil to artists toiling behind the Duomo. Her customers include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Lisa Gherardini, a young mother grieving over the tragic death of her toddler daughter. Tuscan Daughter is set during five epic years in the early 1500s when Florence was rebranding itself through its creative geniuses, when Michelangelo was sculpting the David and Leonardo was starting to paint the Mona Lisa. The novel reveals the humanity and struggles of a young woman longing to find the only family she has left and to be an artist in her own right, entwining her fate with Agnella, a sage healer, Lisa Gherardini and the artistic masters of the time. Inspired by Beatrice, what she has suffered and survived, the characters share a faith in moving past their rivalries to stake everything on the power of beauty to transform and heal their wounds. The book’s cover image is partly inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of La Scapigliata, or Lady with Dishevelled Hair. Tuscan Daughter is available in bookstores across Canada starting July 13, 2021, and next year, translated into Italian throughout Italy. The audio book is narrated by the NYC-based Italian American actress, Carlotta Brentan. — Launched in 2021, translated into Italian, Tuscan Daughter is set during five epic years in the early 1500s when Florence was rebranding itself through its creative geniuses, when Michelangelo was sculpting the David and Leonardo was starting to paint the portrait of Lisa Gherardini, a cloth merchant’s wife, she of the Mona Lisa. The novel reveals the humanity and struggles of a young and defiant Beatrice who longs to find the only family she has left and to be an artist in her own right, entwining her fate with Agnella, a sage healer, Lisa Gherardini and the artistic masters of the time. All of the characters have suffered as outsiders but together, with Beatrice as their guide, they share a faith in moving past their rivalries to stake everything on the power of beauty to transform and heal their wounds. The book’s cover image is partly inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of La Scapigliata, or Lady with Dishevelled Hair.
Tuscan Daughter is available in bookstores across Canada. In Italy, as a hardcover, the translated book is titled La Moglie del Mercante di Stoffe (Newton Compton Editori).
The audio book is narrated by the NYC-based Italian American actress, Carlotta Brentan.

Feltrenelli Books Florence, Italy

Mondadori Books, Duomo Square, Milan