This is such an enjoyable read!

I absolutely love historical fiction set in Italy in general and Venice in particular so this really was a treat.

Following the Rosso family of glassmakers across 600 years or so, The Glassmaker brings us a cast of engaging characters, vivid descriptions of Murano and Venice and a fascinating insight into glassmaking

I wasn’t sure about the time skip element before I picked this up and having finished it I’m still not sure but the writng and the story are so good that I could almost ‘park’ that and just enjoy.

It has evidently taken a huge amount of research but the story never feels heavy with it - the mark of a talented author

Huge thanks to Harper Collins & Netgalley for the chance to read an early copy

A Luminous Journey Through Time - Tracy Chevalier’s “The Glassmaker” is a captivating masterpiece that weaves a spellbinding tale across centuries. It’s more than historical fiction; it’s a shimmering tapestry that transports you from the heart of the Renaissance to the modern world.

Chevalier’s brilliance lies in her ability to craft a narrative that seamlessly blends the past and present. We follow the Rosso family, Venetian glassmakers, as their legacy unfolds against the backdrop of a breathtaking city. From the 16th century’s bustling workshops to the contemporary art scene, the novel paints a vivid picture of Murano and Venice, their opulence and intrigue coming alive in every scene.

The details are nothing short of magical. Chevalier’s descriptions of the glassmaking process are mesmerizing. You’ll feel the heat of the furnace, witness the molten glass dance in the artisans’ hands, and marvel at the exquisite creations that emerge. The sights, sounds, and even the smells of Venice are brought to life in such rich detail, you’ll feel like you’re walking its labyrinthine streets alongside the characters.

But “The Glassmaker” is more than just a visual feast. It’s a story brimming with heart. The characters, especially the strong female leads, are unforgettable. We root for them as they navigate the challenges of a male-dominated world, their struggles for artistic expression resonating deeply. The novel explores themes of family legacy, artistic passion, and the enduring power of love, leaving a lasting impression long after the final page is turned.

If you’re looking for a novel that’s both intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging, “The Glassmaker” is a must-read. Chevalier has outdone herself, crafting a story that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

SIMPLY EXCEPTIONAL! Chevalier just draws me in every time with her beautiful story-telling, incredible research, and credible characters. I loved every page and couldn't wait to get back to Orsola and her life every night. The author manages to weave the historical research so well into the story-line to create a lovely balance. I thought the timeline switch was interesting and it tied in really well with the ending.
An incredible book that I will definitely be recommending

Centuries and centuries of life. From 1400s to 2020s. There is a catch. We follow Rosso family. They are in glass making and the catch is about this family - there is something unique about them.
Orsola is a member of the Rosso family, who is multi-dimensional.
Pros: the historical context, the sociocultural aspects, the resilience of Orsola, the glassmaking element (I love it)
The prose is 3.5 stars.
The ending is 3.5 stars.
The pacing and the structure 3 stars.
3.5 stars rounded up. This book will be a hit.

A great family saga covering 500 years of history. The book is so well-written that I felt transported to Venice and Murano.
An outstanding work of historical fiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc. All opinions are my own.

Orsola Rosso is born into a glassmaking family in Murano, Venice, in the 1400s. Women aren’t meant to work with glass, but Orsola is determined, working in secret, perfecting her creations, aiming for acceptance.

The story skips like a stone through the years, taking us through wars, plague, love and tragedy. Although each period of history was interesting, I wasn’t sold on the stone-skipping device. There’s no denying this is a fascinating book though - I learned a tons about glassmaking and Murano. The characters are well-shaped and I was sucked into their world. An inventive and immersive novel.

Published 12 September 2024. What a gorgeous read! I'm not really into historical fiction but I do tend to pick up the odd novel based around Venice - a place I adore. We are in 1486 and we have the Rosso family - glassmakers in Murano. Our main focus is Orsola, the daughter of the family. Women are not meant to work with glass, their job is the home, but Orsola flouts convention. And then Tracy Chevalier bends time in a way that is so original - I don't recall coming across anything like it before. She uses the image of a stone skimming over the lagoon and stopping in different periods of history - periods that are significant in the story of Venice. We have the plague, Napoleon, the First World War to name three. But - Orsola and the Rossos do not age in the same way. Centuries can pass but Orsola and her family may only have aged 15 years. In this way we see not only the history of glass, how production methods and styles changed, but we also see how the glassmakers had to bend with the changing times. A wonderful concept. The characterisations are well drawn - the women are strong characters and it is fascinating to see them adapting to the different centuries. And Venice itself - and Murano - is another character and we watch its changing face. A wonderful novel.

This book started off ok and I became interested in the storyline set in medieval Venice. As the book progressed though and it became clear that the characters would live on and age slowly (without any explanation why) the story became more contrived as the centuries progressed and the world changed around the cast. I lost interest in the story which felt like a contrived way of telling the story of glassmaking in Venice, with the characters as mere props.

I’ve admired and enjoyed Chevalier’s previous novels and this did not disappoint. Orsola is a wonderful protagonist and I loved spending time in her company. The magic realist element - that she and her family on Murano age more slowly and live through centuries - took a little adjustment and it puzzled me that they don’t ever seem conscious of this or refer to it. However, the scope this allowed, in terms of learning about Venetian history, more than compensated for this slight niggle. The language is beautiful and the detailed descriptions were immersive and rich.

This is a masterpiece, an enchanting tale following the fortunes and misfortunes of the Rosso family on the Island of Murano. Close to Venice and famous for the history of beautiful glassmaking.
And very cleverly the author has centred the story over 600 years through the skimming of a stone whilst concentrating on the same characters. It makes for a fascinating read.
Orsola is an an anomaly on Murano in the times of the Venetian Renaissance, its expected that the males in the family will follow in their Fathers footsteps and become the Maestro but Orsola has her own dreams and wants more for herself than washing cleaning and cooking for the family.
I was totally engrossed in the novel, the characters were well formed, interspersed with real characters Casanova and Josephine Bonaparte to name a couple. The colourful description of Venice itself also brought it to life

'When you mess around with time as I have here, things can go a little wobbly,' says Tracey Chevalier, in the notes at the end of this book. She has played with time, making the lifetime of her main character, Orsola, run in parallel to centuries of the life of Venice. This sounds as if it will not work but, amazingly, it does.

A beautiful piece of writing, centered on Murano, the home of Venetian glass and the life of one demanding woman. She learns to make glass (beads not the blown glass work of the men of her family) and make her way in the world of Venice.

At the same time, or maybe not the same time, Venice rises, becomes a magnificent trading capital, declines, transforms and becomes the Venice we know today.

That's a pretty clever plot device which only feels incongruous at a couple of points, demanding that the reader get to grips with two timeliness working together.

The writing about glass making is wonderful and reflects the usual, careful research. Thank you for taking me on a journey through time, with glass.
Recommended.

My Bookish Thoughts 💬
"The Glassmaker" was a fascinating journey through the glass-making ages in Murano and Venice, spanning from the late 1400s to the present day, with a particular focus on women's contributions to this art. It captivated and beguiled me from the start.

We follow Orsola and her glass-making family through the centuries, witnessing her struggles as a woman in the trade, striving to keep her large family fed and clothed in a competitive market, and enduring various plagues that brought back memories of our own recent pandemic.

Though I never quite understood why Chevalier made time flow differently for the glassmakers, it was masterfully done, and I just went with it. The streets of Murano and Venice, the art of glass-making, and the relationships in the family and with colleagues, other makers, and merchants are beautifully depicted. I felt as though I was in the sweltering workshops, watching the molten glass flow and take form.

I adored the references Chevalier makes to time skimming like a stone across the water at each change in era:
"If you skim a flat stone skillfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands. With that image in mind, now replace water with time."

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. While "The Girl With a Pearl Earring" still holds a special place in my heart, I highly recommend this captivating journey through glass making from one of my favorite historical fiction writers.

We have a glass center where you can watch glass being blown, not far from Newcastle. I've only been once, "The Glass Maker" has me craving to watch these incredible artists at work again.

🙏🏼Thank you Netgalley Harper Fiction, Harper Collins UK and Tracy Chevalier for gifting me a digital proof copy in return for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the historical time frame, going back to the fifteenth century with the history and art of glassmaking. Like many I have been fascinated by Murano glass and have gazed for ages admiring its beauty. Now I feel I can be part of it.
Other books I have read by Tracy Chevalier have so much depth and always make me feel she is answering queries and questions I have and they get me to look deeper into things.
This novel is about a girl called Orsola who is gifted in glassmaking and it takes over her life, when that shouldn't happen.
I'll be looking at Murano glass with different thoughts now.

Tracy Chevalier has written a wonderful book about the glassmakers of Murano. Spanning 500 years but using the same characters is a good device to ensure a good flow as the time periods change. Orsolo is an interesting character with a large family. The descriptions of working with glass are interesting and clearly described. I really enjoyed the way that the history of the different periods was included to set the scene. Another best seller, I think.

I was excited to read this as soon as possible, being a huge fan of 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' and 'A Single Thread', I love the setting and the intricacies in this story, it's very much Chevalier's style. This is a brilliant read for fans of historical fiction who want to be transported to Italy.

Another beautiful book from Tracy Chevalier. As with many of her previous books I would love to see an illustrated version of The Glassmaker. The book is set in Murano and nearby Venice and centres around the Rosso family, glassmakers in Murano. From the outset Chevalier tells us that time progresses differently in Murano: " If you skim a flat stone skillfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands. With that image in mind now replace water with time. " Thus we experience nearly 540 years of Muranesi /Venetian history through the eyes of the main protagonist Orsola and 'those that matter to her'. I thought this clever device worked really well so that without introducing too many new characters we learned the impact of plagues, war, flooding, tourism and trade changes on the glass industry and the lives of the people of the area. The Rosso family, their usual merchant, and a local gondolier were some of the characters used to highlight aspects of history and also of attitudes to diversity of class, race, gender and (dis)ability. I really appreciated reading about the production and marketing of glass over the centuries though before reading this very well researched book I could not have imagined finding this topic so interesting! I have already recommended this stunning historical fidtion to many friends and family. Thank you to The Borough Press for an ARC of this title.

I was interested in this because of the setting, and it seemed like an fascinating subject: a woman breaking into the glassmaking guild in Renaissance Venice. Well, not strictly Venice: Murano, one of the other islands in the Lagoon, where glassmakers are confined because of the danger represented by their furnaces. Orsola Rosso is determined and unconventional, and when she sees another woman, in a rival glassmaking family, who has agency and authority, she wants it for herself.

And that’s the story: a girl who wants to live her own life – and to love who she wants to love – becomes a woman who learns “lampwork”, which is the art of making colourful glass beads using a tallow lamp and a foot pumped bellows. This is not a subject I was familiar with, and it was interesting to learn about. I even watched a couple of YouTube videos of people using modern day equipment to make beads. Clearly, the author undertook a great deal of research.

The setting is vividly described, and the language of the novel is English interspersed with Venetian and Italian words (there is a glossary at the end).

But that’s not the whole story. The central conceit is that “time flows differently here”, and the image is of a stone skipping across the lagoon. So we start in 1486, but we don’t stay there. Each chapter skips a century or so, and we find ourselves in the Venice of different eras. We survive plagues, wars, and technological change. Various historical characters make appearances and the characters skip through time in the eternal city, which changes but doesn’t change in its essentials because it is not terrafirma. 

Possible spoilers below

But I’m not sure it really works. The “eternal” part of the eternal city turns out to be Orsola and the people she loves. So the historical novel borrows elements of fantasy or science fiction, as this woman glassmaker and her friends and family live on and the city changes around them. Time flows differently, yes, so a hundred years pass and Orsola is no older. Except she is, a little bit. She might be eight years, ten years, further down her personal road. She becomes a middle-aged woman, then an older woman. In science fiction terms, the novel is using relativistic time, with Venice as a ship that travels near light-speed, creating time dilation effects. In fantasy terms, it is as if she made a wish: but be careful what you wish for.

As I said, I’m not sure this mix of genres works. I think at the end the novel reaches for an emotional catharsis which doesn’t quite come across, because the time conceit creates a distancing effect. In the end, an interesting experiment that is certainly intriguing but which left me a bit cold.

A family facing tragedies and disappointments is followed over centuries in this engaging and atmospheric narrative. Letting the characters 'age' over the course of the history is a clever device to allow a deeper resonance with their hopes and dreams.
Part historical fiction, part travelogue, part family drama, definitely a book that will delight many readers.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK and Netgalley for a review copy of this novel. Tracy Chevalier’s ability to create stunning historical novels has been well known since her wonderful offering of ‘The Girl With the Pearl Earring’. She’s covered many periods in her novels and different countries and this time she’s settled on the glassmaking community of Murano in Italy, though to fix a time period would be to miss one of the points of this novel.

The novel’s window to view the glass making community is Orsolo, who is part of a moderately successful family of glassmakers, until her father dies suddenly and the family is left with two sons to carry the business forth. The oldest is temperamental, given to fits of rages and bouts of drinking, whose skill is not up to his dreams of success. The other one is better skilled but shy and unable to take the lead. As the business continues to fail, Orsolo’s mother takes desperate measures and sends the boldly ambitious young Orsolo to ask a famous female glassmaker for help. The woman’s fame is not only for her skill but for the fact that she was the only female making glass because it wasn’t deemed a fit occupation for a woman. But Orsolo is curious and clever and she quickly grabs onto the woman’s practical advice for her to make glass beads. That piece of advice sets Orsolo on a path to become an integral part of the family’s glassmaking business and sees the fate of the glassmakers as time passes slowly in the community while outside decades and centuries pass. Murano suffers through plague and hardship, the decline of their prominence as the rest of Europe set up their own workshops and produce glass of lesser quality but a cheaper price. Orsolo’s personal life also suffers and endures and finds, love and joy as well.

Through Orsolo and her family the reader sees the fate of the glassmaker’s craft over time and through that story can understand the journey of many crafts and manufacturers that are part of and ever widening market as technologies and desires change among the global populace. It’s a lesson for today, told in a structure that is unusual and may not be entirely to everyone’s satisfaction if they’re looking for a deeply immersive tale centred around one time period. Nevertheless there is a real sense of place in which richly drawn characters inhabit. The relationships created are real and heartfelt and there is no doubting the veracity of the various processes in glassmaking that result in a very beautifully crafted novel that is a credit to Chevalier.

Once again Tracy Chevalier has transcended time. She brings us through the ages, the epochs, and changes of Venice and in particular Murano. It’s 1486 and our main character, Orsolo Rosso, is a young girl in a family of glassmiths. Through Orsolo we experience the sounds, the scents, the foods, the people and traditions of the times. We learn of the competition between houses, the reputations and secrets of the craft.

In the Glassmaker Chevalier suspends time. She writes: “If you skim a flat stone skillfully across water, it will touch down many times, in long or short intervals as it lands. With that image in mind, now replace water with time”. And she does.

Time skims across the ages for Venice, and in an odd way for Orsolo as well as we begin with her as a young girl in the 1400s yet the book ends with her in her 60s in our modern times. During those years we experience Venice through the history of years, of plagues, war, Napoleon, trade. Confusing? Maybe. Does it work? For me, yes it does. Glassmaking is a timeless art.

One thing I enjoy in Chevalier’s work of historical fiction is the details, some so large, some so minute but ever important in transporting us and our imaginations until we are there experiencing absolutely everything. If you enjoy detailed historical fiction with strongly defined characters you will enjoy this book.

Thank you to Harper Collins UK and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest and unbiased review.