About this book:

In the glittering, treacherous world of 15th-century Venice, where the ancient secrets of glassmaking are fiercely guarded, Isabella Corsi, the gifted daughter of Murano's most revered glassmaker, Maestro Domenico Corsi, dreams of earning her place as an equal among the island's male-dominated artisan guild. Her world is shattered when her father dies mysteriously on the secluded island of San Giorgio, a death ruled an accident but suspected by Isabella to be murder. Driven by grief and a fierce determination to protect her family's legacy, Isabella discovers her father’s secret: a revolutionary "light-bending" glass, the "Eye of Venice," coveted by powerful Venetian nobles, including the ruthless Contarini family, and a shadowy moneylender, Signor Zani. This invention, she soon learns, is not merely art but a dangerous tool that could reshape the balance of power in the Republic.

As Isabella battles hostile guild masters who seek to seize her workshop and discredit her, she uncovers her father’s meticulously coded notes and a hidden antidote to a deliberate flaw he engineered into his most potent creation. With the help of Antonio, an enigmatic scholar and alchemist with his own secrets, Isabella navigates Venice's treacherous social and political labyrinth, forming an unlikely alliance with Riccardo, a masked, limping renegade who holds a personal vendetta against the Contarini. Together, they unravel a complex conspiracy of treason, blackmail, and murder, culminating in a dramatic showdown at the opulent Doge’s Ball. Isabella must expose the Contarini’s plot to sell her father’s flawed glass to a foreign power, risking her own life to defend Venice and unmask the true architects of her family's ruin, all while grappling with shocking revelations about her own family's past and the true cost of her parents' betrayal.