The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (Hachette, RRP $37.99).
It’s 1560 in Italy, the height of the Reformation. A young girl of 15 leaves her family home to live with her new husband, the Duke of Ferrara. Her name is Lucrezia di Cosimo de’Medici, and she wasn’t supposed to marry the Duke – it was supposed to be her eldest sister, Maria. But after her death, Duke requested the younger sister to be her replacement. Within a year,