Agnes of Sorrento

Harriet Beecher Stowe transports readers to the sun-drenched coast of Renaissance Italy, where a young woman named Agnes must navigate a world that has already betrayed her. Born the secret daughter of a Roman prince who abandoned her mother to die of grief, Agnes grows up in the humble streets of Sorrento under the watchful protection of her grandmother Elsie. She sells oranges by the ancient gateway, beautiful and devout, named for the martyr saint whose virtue she strives to embody. But the Renaissance is a dangerous era: Pope Alexander VI holds power, and handsome cavaliers both worthy and wicked are drawn to Agnes's luminous purity. Stowe weaves a tale of spiritual yearning and earthly temptation, exploring what it means to maintain faith when desire and circumstance conspire against you. This is a novel about a girl's struggle to define her own worth in a world that has already written her story as abandoned and disgraced. For readers who savor historical romance with genuine moral weight, Agnes of Sorrento offers both the intoxication of the Italian coast and the quiet ache of a soul trying to rise above its station.