I, Mona Lisa

'[A] lively, tender tale . . . In her zingy new novel [Solomons] gives the Mona Lisa . . . power, casting her as the fanciful narrator of her own story' THE TIMES

'A wonderfully written story of art, but also of obsession, friendship and love - I absolutely adored this novel' Jillian Cantor, author of The Lost Letter and In Another Time

Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.

In Leonardo da Vinci's studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and needling patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, sits the painting of the Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money, intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is sought after and stolen.

Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now she is ready to tell her own story, in her own words - a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. Weaving through the years, she takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.

I, Mona Lisa is a deliciously vivid, compulsive and illuminating story about the lost and forgotten women throughout history.

'Solomons' prose is lyrical and her detail immense. No longer can I look at the Mona Lisa without hearing her. But more, now I know her' PRESS ASSOCIATION

'Oh, my god, I love this book! Extraordinarily inventive, a beautifully written, literary tour-de-force - a delicious historical and artistic feast' John Ironmonger, author of Not Forgetting the Whale