Orsola Rosso is the daughter of a glassmaker but in 15th century Venice she is not allowed to work in the family business. Learning how to make beads, Orsola perfects her craft and builds her own small business, even though her one true love is taken from her. Over the centuries time outside Murano changes but Orsola and her family have to deal with each challenge as it comes.
A quite high-brow concept where Orsola and her family barely age as history evolved around them but it works very well in the hands of such a terrific writer. This is historical fiction with intelligence and it a wonderful read!

‘The Glassmaker’ follows one character over hundreds of years, and those closest to her. Whilst this premise sounds impossible, it is written by with great skill. Meticulously researched, it is set amongst the famous glass-making families of Murano and is deftly woven around real-life events such as the plagues of medieval Venice, two world wars and the coronavirus pandemic. The main character, Orsola, is the daughter of the Rosso family. Businesses are passed from father to son - when her father is coiled in an accident her brother, Marco, Takes over. But Marco is not ready for the responsibility and soon the workshop and the family are in financial trouble. To help, Orsola learns how to make beads but this is not regarded by her family.

The plague arrives in Murano and the families’ situation worsens, and Orsola is separated from her lover when he is forced to leave by Marco. Will she ever see him again? I enjoyed this book, the cast of characters changes as the family grows as time passes, Time passed differently in Murano to the rest of the world, and in the hands of a master story teller this idea worked well. Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for the ARC, this has not affected my review.

I absolutely loved this Book, with it's fascinating Characters across the Centuries, the wonderful even sometime rough descriptions of the Architecture, People & work in and around the Island of Murano & of Venice itself.
It was wonderful to learn about how the women made the Beads by Lampwork ( I have actually seen a modern day Lamp & Lampwork Beads in a Museum in Kyoto, Japan ) so that made reading this even more special & I also have a piece of Murano Glass my husband bought from a workshop on the Island when he was serving in the Royal Navy & he took a trip to the Island. Glass is a magical substance & I fell even deeper in love with it through reading this beautiful Book. #NetGalley, #GoodReads, #FB, #Instagram, Amazon.co.uk, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/8a5b541512e66ae64954bdaab137035a5b2a89d2" width="80" height="80" alt="200 Book Reviews" title="200 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

I'm a big fan of Tracy Chevalier so I knew I'd enjoy this. It conjured up Murano and Venice beautifully and I felt fully immersed in the fascinating world of glass-blowing. I think I'd have preferred it if the novel had kept to one time period - I found the conceit of time moving differently on the Venetian islands a little jarring, especially when it reached the modern day and COVID.

A perfect holiday read-I had the time to become completely engrossed in this wonderful story of Orsola Russo,a glass bead maker in Murano,Venice.The story spans the period from the end of the 15th century to the present day,thanks to a bit of magical realism which allows the same characters to be in the story,because time in Venice passes at a different rate to anywhere else.Somehow ,it works and it’s a lovely way to tell of the development of Venice and its glassmaking industry throughout history. There is lots of detail about the process of glassmaking,and the part played by women .Highly recommended-I’ve told all my book -loving friends about it!
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

An interesting historical novel about a period in history that I didn't know anything about. I felt that I was being educated at the same time and enjoying the novel. Highly recommend

This story starts off following a girl on the island of Murano, Orsola Rosso, part of a family of glassmakers in the 15th century. As Orsola is a girl she has not been apprenticed into the glass blowing tradition, however glass is all around her, in her blood, the breadwinner for her entire family. An encounter with a woman from another glassblowing family gives Orsola the opportunity to learn how to fashion glass beads - smaller glasswork that can be done over a lamp, work for women, overlooked by the men. There starts Orsola’s story with glassmaking.

This was already a really interesting time and place, and I wish it had stopped there. Instead the author introduced an odd hopping through time thing, where the characters stayed the same but the century did not. It becomes hard to concentrate on the logic of the story of the characters when the world around them doesn’t really make sense - there is so much glossed over in order to make the fanciful time travel idea work - but the characters ageing slowly while the world goes on around them is deeply distracting and annoying - I really wish the author had just written a normal historical fiction set on Murano because as interesting as Orsola’s life is, the time hopping takes away from it and makes it lose sense. It just felt unnecessary- I think the author did it to fit in as many interesting facts about Venice as possible, from the plague to Casanova and Josephine Buonaparte, right up to the modern pandemic. In my opinion this didn’t work. The characters have to change in fundamental ways as they are thrust from century to century, and we are somehow meant to still find them believable.

My thanks to #NetGalley and the publisher, The Borough Press (Harper Collins), for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The idea behind this book is interesting, telling the history of Venetian glassmaking beautifully with interesting and well developed characters. The time travelling aspect was a little strange but a novel way to approach the idea for continuity. I didn't however feel that taking it all the way to present day with the pandemic worked, it made it feel a little gimmicky and like an add on to the book which wasn't needed. I also didn't feel that there was enough story to the character's lives other than the change in time and living experience. Unfortunately not as good as I had hoped although very beautiful and an interesting insight into the world of glassmaking.

I was excited to read a new book by Tracy Chevalier, and this has really delivered against that anticipation.

Orsola Rosso lives in Murano, over the lagoon from Venice, in the late 15th century. Orsola is daughter to a glassmaker father who is the current maestro of the Rosso house, with her brothers being trained to take over one day Glass making is not an activity for women, but Orsola pushes against this trend, secretly learning to make glass beads, which although small soon take on their worth in the family business.

I loved all the descriptions of the crafting of glass-making, clearly a lot of research has enabled Tracy Chevalier to portray the sights, sounds and feeling of the environment, and the rivalry between the various Muranese glass making families.

The characters are well written and vivid, all different, some to like, some to dislike, all with a variety of relationships going on.

The really brilliant and clever thing about this book is the use of time - Murano is trapped in its own little world, and hence the time of the narrative stays continual throughout Murano while the rest of the world moves on, so we move through the centuries and historical changes, all while Orsola carries on through her life. This is so well written, particularly with regard to her relationship with Antonio, her lover who moves to the mainland and how he continues to communicate with her across both land and time. So cleverly crafted, and brings a sweet conclusion to the story.

Having enjoyed some of Tracy Chevalier’s previous books I was particularly looking forward to this one because of the setting. It takes place on Murano, an island in the Venetian Lagoon which for centuries has been associated with glass making. It begins in the 15th century but doesn’t remain in that time period because, Chevalier tells us, time works differently there – more on that later!

1486 is when we first meet Orsola Rosso, the eldest daughter of a Murano glassmaking family. Working with glass is considered a man’s job, but Orsola feels that glassmaking is in her blood and longs to have the same opportunities as her brothers. When her father is killed in an accident in the workshop and the family begin to struggle both financially and creatively, Orsola comes up with a plan to earn some extra money by making glass beads. Despite bead making being looked down on by men as not ‘real’ glassmaking, it’s difficult, intricate work and takes Orsola a lot of time and effort to master, but eventually she learns the necessary skills and is helping to keep the family business afloat.

In 1574, the Rosso family experience more hardships when plague makes its way across the water from Venice to Murano – but this is where time begins to move strangely. Although many decades have gone by, the characters have barely aged at all and the story just continues within this new setting as if nothing unusual has happened. We jump forward in time several more times throughout the book until we are brought right up to date with the Covid pandemic – and still Orsola and the other central characters remain unaware that they should have been dead for hundreds of years! I don’t think I’ve read another novel that handles time in this exact way; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando has a similar concept, but it only involves one or two characters rather than the entire cast, and she plays with gender as well as age. John Boyne’s The Thief of Time also has a protagonist who doesn’t age, but he is at least aware that something odd is going on. What Chevalier does here is different and I think readers will either dislike it or just accept and enjoy it.

The device Chevalier uses to tell the story has two advantages. The first is that it allows her to give an overview of the history of Venice and Murano from the 1400s to the modern day and explore the ways in which things have changed over the centuries (plagues, two world wars, increasing tourism, competition affecting Venice’s position as a centre of trade). The second is that she can focus on developing one set of characters – including Orsola and her brothers and sisters, her lover Antonio, the German merchant Klingenberg and the African gondolier Domenego – instead of introducing new generations. Still, I think I would have been just as happy if the book had been set entirely in one of the earlier time periods, as they were the ones that interested me most.

A lot of Chevalier’s novels tend to deal with specific crafts or vocations: embroidery and bell ringing in A Single Thread; fossil collecting in Remarkable Creatures; or growing apple trees in At the Edge of the Orchard. Obviously in this book it’s the making of glass and beads and we learn a lot about the skills required, the methods used and the personal touches each individual glassmaker brings to their work. I’m fortunate enough to have visited both Venice and Murano and seen a glass blowing demonstration so I could easily picture some of the things and places Chevalier describes, but even if you haven’t she does an excellent job of bringing them to life. This is a fascinating book and I did enjoy it, even if I wasn’t completely convinced by the time travel element!

The Glassmaker by Tracey Chevalier

Orsola is the spirited teenage daughter of the Rosso family, all glassmakers from the tiny Venetian island of Murano. She’s very young when she sees her father bleed out in the workshop after he’s struck in the neck by a shard of glass while making pieces for a chandelier. Out of his two sons, the youngest is quiet, solid and dependable and would have made the perfect maestro, while his eldest Marco is loud, egotistical and very proud of his skill with glass. Now the entire family’s fortunes lie on his shoulders as the eldest always inherits the title of maestro from their father. He needs to support everyone from his widowed mother Laura and her youngest daughter Stella. His promotion leaves room for another servente to become the apprenticed glassmaker, second only to the maestro. In an unusual move Marco employs Antonio, originally a fisherman he has always wanted to work with glass. For Orsola it is love at first sight. Meanwhile, she is looking for ways to supplement the family’s income and visits their patron and merchant, a Dutchman called Klingenhorn. He suggests that she approach the only female glassmaker in the city to teach her how to make glass beads over a heated lamp. Once her beads are of the right quality, Klingenhorn agrees to place an order and she sets to work with determination. Orsola is our window on the Rosso family and she imparts both their history and the history of the island with it’s amazing glassmaking heritage. It is a history filled with love, passion, duty, tragedy and ingenuity, plus a little touch of the magic that Venice has in abundance.

It’s hard not to fall in love with Orsola because she’s so brave and independent, attacking life with a fearlessness that aligns her with the most important woman working in glass, Maria Barrovier. The family business is run by the men of the family, leaving the women powerless. Her mother has a great business brain and younger brother Giacomo would have definitely been a safer pair of hands, churning out the same simple glassware for daily use. Yet thanks to a circumstance of birth they are all at the mercy of the mercurial Marco. He is so dissatisfied with their usual output of plates and goblets that have been the Rosso’s bread and butter, he wants to make more ornate and decorative glass, but misses the fact that it still has to be functional. Orsola keeps her own business dealings with Klingenhorn a secret from her family, telling them her bead making is merely a hobby. Her budding romance with Antonio is intoxicating, but she knows immediately that he wouldn’t be her brother’s choice for a husband. They spend moonlit nights marooned on Antonio’s boat dreaming of a life where they can be together, away from the rivalry his presence has caused in the workshop. The Rosso’s business is a rollercoaster and they have to face hardship, change focus and rebuild several times. The author takes us from the 17th Century plague that hit Venice hard, all the way through to the COVID pandemic. While centuries pass in the real world, somehow everything happens within Orsola’s lifetime. When I visited Venice for the first time, particularly in the evening, I had a strange feeling I might turn a corner and be in another century. Orsola rarely leaves Murano and Venice, only once venturing to the mainland, rowed by Klingenhorn’s slave. I felt that if Orsola actually set foot on the mainland she would suddenly age by decades.

The time difference felt strange at first, but it soon felt completely normal. We get to experience the city’s heyday as a bustling port, filled with merchants and people of all races and places. We see that dwindle as time goes on and slowly native Venetians leave and tourists move in. The author explores issues that are important to the island today: the worsening of the acqua Alta; the building of flood defences in the lagoon; cruise ships dwarfing the city and disgorging hundreds of tourists into San Marco at once; the shops selling cheap Chinese versions of local crafts such as mask makers, leather workers and glass makers, undercutting local artists; the changing flora and fauna, illustrated by the dolphins reported in the lagoon during COVID when only residents were left in the city. The author explores that conundrum of the negative impact of tourism on the city, while also acknowledging the city’s absolute dependence on it’s visitors. The endless lament that Venice is sinking, only serving to heighten people’s desire to see it. There are those who feel Venice has become a theme park of of it’s original self. I utterly adore Venice and I’m going next year for what will probably be the last time as it is difficult for a disabled person to get around. The author mentions a Las Vegas hotel where a microcosm of Venice has been created, with some visitors thinking they no longer need to travel to see the city. Yet it’s picture perfect bridges and clean canals are miles away from the real Venice. Of all my memories of Venice, the most important are those that are far from perfect. It’s the churn of the mud in the Grand Canal and silty smell of the mud, the washing hanging above your head, meeting locals and their dogs walking after dinner and the sound of squeaking rubber against the dock as the vaporetto leaves it’s stop. We always laugh about the old man we met crossing a bridge into Castello who farted loudly, before laughing uproariously! I feel that spooky sensation I had walking round the back of La Fenice after dark and the smell of candles and incense as we heard mass in an unexpectedly beautiful church. It was watching everyday things that gave me an idea of living in Venice: the grocery deliveries; being rushed to hospital or having the rubbish collected by boats. It’s all these things that make Venice real and not a film set.

Of course I was longing for Orsola to reunite with her one love Antonio and I won’t ruin your enjoyment by telling all, except to say that just like the real Venice, real life is rarely a romantic novel. However, what I enjoyed most was Orsola herself because she is a pioneer and an incredible business woman. In fact she succeeds precisely because she is a woman. While Marco inherits the business, his ego and inability to change could have derailed the whole family. The women in this novel ‘manage’ the men, working around them and often slowly drip feeding ideas and solutions to the men until they adopt the idea as their own. Whereas Marco never asks for advice and rarely takes it, Orsola recognises the shortcomings of the business or when a crisis is looming. She knows who to ask, consulting with Klingenhorn and his replacement Johnas, Maria Barovier and the women of Cannaregio about threading and stacking seed beads. Even as the novel comes up to date she’s still diversifying, opening a second shop in a busy tourist Calle of Venice itself and employing someone to crate the glass balloons and trinkets that are easily packaged and stowed in a suitcase. She survives by being pragmatic, recognising when to challenge and when to do her duty, even if her temper does get the better of her at times. The depth of research that’s gone into her story and the author recommends many sources in her brilliant afterword. She creates a Venice I recognise, full of beauty and history but also a real and imperfect place, reliant on the very thing that destroys it. She captures the soul of the island and of Murano too and the people who feel themselves as Muranese first and foremost. I loved the magic of these places and how it attracts the eccentric and eclectic characters who have made it their home over the years. From Casanova, to Peggy Guggenheim and the previous owner of her home, the Marchessa and her pet Cheetahs. It is a moving, vibrant and intelligent novel that I know I will want to read again and again.

Thanks to NetGalley, publishers and author for an ARC of The Glassmaker.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It is a beautifully written book following a family of glassmakers on an island near Venice, where time moves differently to the rest of the world. Following the ups and downs of family life, events in history and more, to see how glass making changed to keep up with the changing world.
Highly recommend.

I was quickly drawn into this story, a family of Glassmakers on the Island of Murano. Orsola is the daughter of the family, the business is passed from Father to son with the women doing the domestic work. When an accident occurs in the workshop, Orsola's Father Lorenzo is killed, making them short of money Marco the eldest takes over the business, he is arrogant and selfish. Orsola tries to make the family pull together especially when she realises her Mother Laura is pregnant. Orsolo starts making seed glass beads to help support her family, they are sold cheaply and she has to keep the work secret from her brother.
Orsolo's sister is born and Marco married then plague breaks out, infected people are moved to an island and isolated, any family who has contact with a victim is incarcerated in their home until the quarantine period is up. Families are split up and there are many deaths. A friend of the family Antonia brings supplies to the family, he is apprenticed to the workshop, he and Orsolo fall in love, but Marco sacks him so he has to move to Prague. The family continue to grow, more children are born, Orsolo eventually marries Stefano against her wishes, he is the son of a rival glassmaker.
War erupts and times are again difficult. We live thorough events from 1486 to the present day, but time goes slowly in Murano, Orsolo is only in her sixties at the end of the novel.
I enjoyed this book, confused at times by the many children and families, also the whole time passing in a different way.
Thank you NetGalley, Tracy and Harper Collins for this ARC.

The Glassmaker is destined to become one of my books of the year. Starting in 1486 we are told the story of the Orsola Rosso, the daughter of a glassmaker on the island of Murano. The island and its inhabitants are subject to their own rules of time so we can skip forward for example from 1494 to 1574 with the characters only aging by a couple of years. With this clever device the author is able to move through the history of Venice and Murano and their wars, plagues ,trade wars, tourism, Covid and floods that effect the area due to changes in the climate. It is a story of family and love but also of how history has affected the people and trade within this area. I felt that I have learnt so much about glassmaking and the history of the Venice but it never felt forced or overwhelming. A truly wonderful book that I will take pleasure in re-reading in the future. Many thanks to NetGalley, and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for a honest review.

“Absorbing, historical fiction”
I was attracted to this book because of its Venetian setting.

The detail about glass making- whether it be beads or more ornate pieces were absorbing as were the parts where the Plague comes to Venice.

I enjoyed the characters, but the "device" of a stone skimming across time, with time moving more slowly for the characters really did not work for me. It stretched belief beyond its elasticity. To have Orsola live in so many centuries with her family was too much . I felt that Chevalier would have been better off writing about generations of the family across the centuries and trusting readers to remember the family tree.

The pace was good and the historical detail and I do feel inspired to return to Murano having read this book. I attended an event at the Cheltenham Literary Festival for this book , but unfortunately the author had Covid , as I was hoping that she would have changed my opinion.

However thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.

I very much enjoyed this beautifully written historical fiction book, set in Venice and Murano, about a glass-making family. The book cleverly skips through time, covering so much interesting history while recounting the plot, all the way from the 1400s to the present day. So skilfully written because Chevalier is simply so very good at writing. A delight.

This is a mesmerising read - a fascinating history of glassmaking in Venice, tied to the history of the Rosso family, and to the character of Orsola, a young woman who aspires to be a glassmaker like her father and brothers, At the outset of the story in 15c Venice, this is not a career which women can follow, but she is shown the secrets of glass bead making by an older woman, from a rival glassmaking family.
As time passes - shown by the device of a stone, skipping across the Venice lagoon - her role becomes more central to the family's fortunes. She, and to a lesser extent, her family, age in a way that allows her to witness the events of 5 centuries as experienced by and in the city, and the wider world.

Orsola is a complex, engaging, paradoxical character whose story is both individual and universal, timeless and specific to her various timelines. Chevalier's writing completely convinced me to suspend disbelief and follow Orsola's survival through the ages. While the writer must have done a great deal of research in order to give the book its historical background, this never feels intrusive - simply stunningly authentic.

Thoroughly recommend.

To historical fiction lovers this book is a gem. Venice and the surrounding islands, including Murano, will always have a special place in history. This novel is a fitting tribute to the glassmakers of old times, presents their work and traditions in great details through the life of a family. I found the time jumps a bit confusing, but the story itself is captivating and emotional, and the writing is simply beautiful.

The Glassmaker is a beautiful, sad and emotional story of a glassmaking family in the island of Murano and spanning five centuries. Exquisite storytelling, the plot device of the Venice and island inhabitants aging slower than the rest of the world world very well. I have visited Venice and Murano and possess some of its glass and I would like to go.back. Historical fiction it's best.

The Glassmaker
Tracey Chevalier

Is a gripping, enjoyably old-fashioned story with a strong character, Orsula as the lead.
The one fatal flaw is she and her family are allowed to witness many centuries of Venice and Murano history whilst aging at a slower rate.
From little girl who is born into a glass making family she finds a way to guide her headstrong brother through hard timed and even joins the family profession as a bead maker.
However she goes from making beads at the time of the Great Plague through to Covid which makes it all somewhat unbelievable.
It tells a fascinating story of Venice's boom and destitution caused by Napoleon and then a war and yet more wars. At one stage she makes a disastrously hot headed decision and allows the love of her life to leave her behind. Interwoven with this are her many parting and bereavements which overall make it a very sad book