Fascinating walk through the history of Murano Glass through fictional characters but incorporating real people too. The strange thing is that the same family is followed - but through from the 15th to the 20th century. They live through all the main events of those centuries. The family and their relationships are well described; the explanations of the bead and glass making very interesting. Tracy Chevalier has yet again brought a subject I knew little about to life.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Tracy Chevalier/Harper Collins UK for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

I was very excited to journey to Tracy Chevalier's Murano and Venice in this, her most recent novel. It did not disappoint, a rich reminder that Venice was once the center for trade and commerce hundreds of years ago. It was as vivid and touching a tale as one might expect. Sumptuous reading that brought this unique place to life along with more than a few historical characters, to give context of the times.

The story is constructed around the Rosso family who are glass blowers living and working on the island of Murano. Orsola Rosso, the eldest daughter, must realise her talent for working with glass when the family falls on diffiuclt times. We travel through time from 1486 to modern day, which spans a lifetime on Murano, where time moves at its own, glacial pace. A great narrative device catapulting this generation of the family through much turbulent history and family dramas.

Having vacationed in Venice, and visited Murano for the day, I was transported back to this magical place and shared in its historical ups and downs through the last 500+ years. I clearly recall the beauty of this region and am keen to go back and be one of the millions of tourists who go to see the sights, eat the food and buy handmade glass. Bellissima, Tracy. Another extraordinary novel, thank you.

A beautifully written and well researched account of the history of glass making in Murano through the lives of a typical, but fictional, family of glass makers on the island. Travelling through about 500 years of history, the novel presents the personal impact of social and political events on the family and their struggles throughout this time period until the present day. One of my favourite authors of all time.

Plot led or research led a balancing dilemma for some novelists normally something Tracey Chevalier does very well. However this novel reads like a history of the glass making community in the Venetian island of Murano with a generic family saga, female empowerment, love story attached. Chevalier was so fascinated by this history and modern parallels that she wanted to highlight and share it with her readers but clearly has struggled to write a novel to incorporate it seamlessly.

I love Tracy Chevalier’s work and there’s much to thoroughly enjoy about this story which follows a family of glassmakers from the height of Renaissance Italy to the present day. There are beautiful and vivid descriptions of the art of glass making, the setting of Venice is of course glorious, and her wonderful cast of characters is excellently brought to life. However, I really struggled with the selective time jumping – while it’s a creative and clever way of writing historical fiction, I lost the emotional connection. It's an original concept with none of the characters acknowledging that anything unusual was taking place, but it didn't work for me. That said, there’s still lots in this book to enjoy hence my 4 stars. With thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an ARC.

Enthralling from the first page to the last, ‘The Glassmaker’ by Tracy Chevalier is by far the best novel I’ve read so far this year. It’s a heady mixture of beautiful glass, Venice in rich times and poor, passion, jealousy and intense competition, focusing on Orsola Rosso and her glass-making family on Murano island within the Venice lagoon through the centuries to the present day.
Chevalier introduces us to the idea of time-skipping in her brief introduction. ‘The City of Water runs by its own clock. Venice and its neighbouring islands have always felt frozen in time – and perhaps they are.’ And so we follow the same family across six hundred years. In the first chapter in 1494 we meet nine-year old Orsola; this is her story, told in leaps and skips across the centuries. The second instalment of Orsola’s life is in 1574 when she is eighteen years old. Those close to her have aged similarly, only Venice is at once the same and different. Its an ingenious way to tell the story of the Rosso family, the ups and downs of the glassmaking business, their loves and losses, the wars and disease, all set within the framework of Venice and of Murano glass.
When Maestro Lorenzo Rosso dies, Orsola’s eldest brother Marco must take charge of the family business but he is impulsive and designs flamboyant impractical pieces. When contracts are lost and Marco is in his cups, Orsola learns the art of glass bead making. The business of glassmaking is always kept within the immediate family, different families have different specialities, and so matches are made for the sons and daughters of maestros according to the skill or wealth of the incomer. Orsola knows she must marry one day. Her mother and brother’s selection of the man to be her husband is pragmatic, it turns the direction of the story and influences everything that follows.
Life is lived in a bubble on Murano island; loyalties are intense but so is hatred and rivalry. While most women are mutually supportive, others are jealous and ambitious. Murano families rarely go to Venice, Venetians don’t go to Murano. None of them go to the mainland, terraferma. Above all for these families who live close to the bread line, security of employment and supply of food for the family is the primary concern. We follow the Rossos through feast and famine, war, plague, flood and Covid.
So many of Chevalier’s novels are based upon a specific craft or skill – art in ‘The Girl with a Pearl Earring,’ embroidery in ‘A Single Thread,’ tapestry weaving in ‘The Lady and the Unicorn,’ fossil-hunting in ‘Remarkable Creatures.’ ‘The Glassmaker’ is another homage to skilled craftsmen who create beautiful objects that last across time.
A magical story, beautifully written. And what a gorgeous cover!
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

I really enjoyed this book! I would highly recommend it to non-historical fiction readers, especially for its depiction of the glassmaker's family. It's clear that the writer has done extensive research, and the book is well-thought-out and thought-provoking. Thank you for the opportunity to read this!

An utterly absorbing read!
Venice and Murano glassmaking history brought to life through the Rossi family and their near friends. Time has a different setting for Venice and Murano, it moves slowly allowing Orsina Rossio to live for 500 years and tell the story of her family and the evolving glassmaking business.
This is a fascinating story and one I did not want to end. I learnt a lot about the trade in beads and glass and the role of women in the business. How th3 glassmakers survived the competition from Europe and latterly from China and how it adapted in order to expand, just like the Rossi family itself.
The characters became friends, Domingo the slave, Stefano the husband, Marco the brother and Antonio the one who went away.
A fascinating glimpse into history and family, not to be missed.

This is a book which pays homage to Venice and the craft of glass-making on the island of Murano. Chevalier writes beautifully and her research is impeccable. I really enjoyed the way this book gives a great swathe-like overview of time and history. However, I felt somewhat removed from the characters as we didn't spend enough time with their emotions. The plot didn't do much to draw me in either. But this is accomplished historical fiction all the same.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.

A heady blend of history and family love

Chevalier returns with a barnstorming historical novel with a tiny bit of magic, but based in the already magical environs of Venice and Murano, you know that you're in for a magical journey. And so it proves, with the minutiae of glassmaking from its 15th century heyday to the present, as we timeslip across the centuries to follow the life of Orsola Rosso, headstrong but dismissed daughter of a glassmaking maestro, who steps in when tragedy strikes, and with it, a way to keep her family alive through pestilence, war, tourism, alta acqua, and another plague.

The magic bit isn't the important part, but instead the determination that Orsola presents in every era that besets Murano and its richer twin throughout the centuries. Her own thwarted romance and the centre son longing, the steady relationships she builds up instead, the rivalries with other glassmakers and within her own family add a flavour to this blessed book, that also doesn't take Venice and the Veneto for granted, full of detail and heat and firsthand experience.

A joyful and thoughtful four and a half stars.

This beautifully written and wonderfully told tale is just joyous.

Orsola Rosso's family are glassmakers on the island of Murano near Venice. We read about Orsolo and how the glassmaking trade affects her family and how they suffer trials and victories over the years.

This is such an historic tale and I loved the rich vivid descriptions of Murano and I loved Orsolo. Her intricate work of making glass beads to help the family finances was a delight to read about and even now long after I have finished this book I still find myself thinking about her.

The passing years tell in detail of wars, disease and pandemics and how the family overcame these disasters and succeed with the business.

I appreciate how the author must have researched this art, it shines through each page and I defy any reader not to fall in love and fully immerse themselves in this book

have read all of Tracy Chevalier’s books and there isn’t one I haven’t fallen in love with. After four years she is back with this mesmerizing and origional novel, The Glassmaker. Set over five hundred years of Venice’s history of Glassmaking, told through the eyes of Orsola Rosso and her family. This is a book of the role of women through history, the artisan crafts and how they are effected by progress and the importance of family.

I was excited to hear that Tracy Chevalier had written another novel and that it was set on the Island of Murano. Tracy Chevalier always has an inventive and origional feel to her books and The Glassmaker is no exception. Starting in 1486, when the Murano Glass Industry was at it’s height, sending their wares all over the world, to 2019, Covid and the acqua alta that caused so much damage to the buildings. I was fascinated by all this history, the plagues, change in rule, the emergence of electricity and glass factories opening across Europe and how Orsola and her family had to adapt on a professional and personal level. I loved that at every jump in time, Tracy Chevalier grounded that period with cultural, political and social references of the period to put what was happening in Murano and Venice in perspective.

Orsola is a wonderful character. Inspired by Maria Barovier, a female glass worker, Orsola wants to become the same, but this is a man’s world of heat and strength. However, Orsola learns how to make beads and soon earns her own money. The family have so many changing fortunes over the course of the book, from running a successful business, to harder times when fashions changed and when plague hits having nothing as they are unable to work. What shines through in Orsloa’s story is the importance of family, yes there are disagreements, marriages, death, births that all change the structure of the family, and need for progression but they still have each other, family is still the most important thing.

The Glassmaker is a tour de force from Tracy Chevalier. In a lot of her novels women and their place in history and she continues this theme in this book. Orsola’s story is fascinating, her journey of hiding that she makes money, to not being taken seriously to having the most profitable skill in the family. There is no doubt that this is an Ode to Murano and all the families that worked there and still work there. This is an innovative, captivating and immersive read, that covers half a century, and a book I highly recommend.

Even though I've finished this book, it still intrigues me. The family of the story live in their own time bubble whilst the world around them turns at 'our' rate, which I suppose is a way of illustrating how Murano's glass industry has endured. I learned things I previously didn't know which I always enjoy.....yes, definitely intriguing.

I've always enjoyed Ms Chevalier's writing style, and did so again in this book with her way of bringing different characters to life and her vivid descriptions of place.
However, I really struggled with the time skipping concept, particularly at the end. Also whilst I appreciate the need for a reader to understand the intricacies of glassblowing and the different skills and hierarchy involved I did feel at times, especially at the beginning, that the author was writing a textbook. Perhaps short footnotes would have worked better.
Thank you to netgalley and Harper Collins for an advance copy of this book.

The Glassmaker follows the life of Orsola Rosso who is born into a family of glassmakers on the island of Murano across the lagoon from Venice. Time flows differently here as the world spins on, we see how Orsola manages to work with glass and how this affects her family over the years as they face many trials and tribulations. An absolutely fascinating book which gives the reader an insight into the world of glass and the history of Venice over the generations anchored in the experience of the Rosso family.

It’s been a while since I read Tracy Chevalier, but oh my, did I quickly remember the sheer joy of her writing. Within pages I found myself totally immersed in Venetian life, whisked back in time to the glass making island of Murano. Following Orsola’s story was captivating, my heart sang for her and cried for her in equal measure. I learnt so much about glass making and the history of Murano and Venice, yet in an almost osmotic way as Tracy’s research is so perfectly woven into her storytelling. I loved the passage of time and the magical, mysticism of Murano. The cast is full of strong, feisty women and I loved seeing them grow and shine together: their relationships were so well portrayed. Tracy’s prose is just beautiful and effortless. I devoured this book in a matter of days as I didn’t want to leave Orsola. Absolutely deserving of a glowing five stars and I will be recommending it to all my friends.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Harper Collins for a copy in exchange for a review.

Across the Venice lagoon lies Murano, it’s a place where time moves differently and where traditional glass making skills are the life blood of the island. Into this established world we are introduced to the Rosso family, and with time as skilfully manipulated as the glass they produce, we move with eldest daughter Orsola Rosso as she weaves, with her family, from 1486 Renaissance Venice, through to our modern post-Covid world.

The Glassmaker takes us on an intricate journey, beautifully recreating each specific era whilst at the same time following the lives of the Rosso family as they endure so much in both their personal lives and in the way the the complex process of glassmaking fluctuates within each successive timeframe. Wonderfully characterised, each member of this impressive family comes alive, we struggle when they struggle and rejoice when things go well. However, what is most fascinating is the glassmaking process itself and in particular Orsola’s skill in creating exquisite glass beads.

Spanning six centuries this is a hugely ambitious story and one which could so easily have failed, however, in the hands of this skilful writer the story flows beautifully. I loved how with Orsola Rosso as its lynchpin there was always a sense of continuity and as we moved forward in time I was captivated by the way the story unfolded around me, firing my imagination in this beautiful, but complex, world of glass.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tracy Chevalier for ARC copies of both the digital and the audio books. As is usual with books by this author, I became engrossed from page 1 and switched between reading and listening depending what I was doing at the time - the perfect combination. The narrator is marvellous.

The book was very interesting from an educational point of view and a great deal of research has been done to make the story as authentic as possible. The story itself was engrossing and I quickly fell into feeling that I knew and lived with the characters and their experiences and back stories. I recommend both types of media here and eagerly await what I’m sure will become a film version of the book.

This was a superb story. Using artistic licence, the author employs time slip to follow the fortunes of the Rossi family, glassmakers in Murano, down through the centuries, keeping the main character Orsola to the fore. Venetian life for rich and poor springs in glorious colour from the pages, much like the beads Orsola makes to keep the family fortunes alive in troubled times. This story really is a tour de force - so much history unfolds in the most beautiful narrative. The characters are wonderful, evolving to suit every century we find them in without ever losing their true selves, and the rich, descriptive writing is everything you can expect from Tracy Chevalier.. There’s heartbreak, humour and romance embedded into every word. I’d give this ten stars, not five, if I could.

The Glassmakers begins in Venice in 1468 and follows the story of Orsola Rosso, the daughter of a glassmaker in Murano. When the family is hit by tragedy, Orsolo starts making glass beads to save them from poverty. She has to work in secret as women are not allowed to work in glass. Through the mechanism of “Venice time” we follow Orsola and her family through centuries. It was fascinating to follow the story of Venice and glassmaking against a backdrop of famous historical figures and events. There was also a love story running throughout. I found the concept of Venice time confusing at first and couldn’t stop wondering how far it extended and who was or wasn’t affected. This did detract from my enjoyment a little but overall I enjoyed the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for this review copy.