About this book:

In the furnaces of 1380 Murano, where the Republic imprisons its greatest artists to guard the secrets of glass, Orso Valeriano has achieved the impossible: *cristallo*, a clarity so pure it swallows light and purifies whatever it touches. But perfection is a dangerous thing in Venice. When a hawk-faced priest arrives with a commission from the Church—a vessel to capture the final breath of a dying saint—Orso realizes his masterpiece is not merely glass. It is a cage for the soul.

Caught between the jealousy of rival masters, the spy-glass of the Council of Ten, and the hungry gaze of the Inquisition, Orso must forge a reliquary that can withstand the weight of a holy exhalation. Each failed attempt shatters like a prayer unanswered; each success draws him deeper into a conspiracy that spans the lagoon to the Doge’s palace. The glass remembers the fire that birthed it. Now it hungers for the spirit.

Atmospheric and steeped in the alchemy of Renaissance Venice, *The Glassblower's Stolen Breath* is a spellbinding tale of obsession and sacrifice, where the line between craft and miracle melts away—and the price of capturing heaven is measured in human breath.