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  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780140113594
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $26.00

The Spring of the Ram

The House of Niccolo 2




The exquisitely-researched standalone prequel series to Dorothy Dunnett's revered Lymond Chronicles, following the ancestors of Francis Crawford of Lymond in Continental Europe

In 1461, the mysterious enigmatic Nicholas is in Florence. Backed by none other than Cosimo de' Medici, he will sail the Black Sea to Trebizond, last outpost of Byzantium, and the last jewel missing from the crown of the Ottoman Empire. But trouble lies ahead. Nicholas's step-daughter - at the tender age of thirteen - has eloped with his rival in trade: a Machiavellian Genoese who races ahead of Nicholas, sowing disaster at every port. And time is of the essence: Trebizond may fall tot he Turks at any moment. Crackling with wit, breathtakingly paced, THE SPRING OF THE RAM is a pyro technic blend of scholarship and narrative shimmering with the scents, sounds, colors and combustible emotions of the 15th century.

  • Published: 7 November 2019
  • ISBN: 9780140113594
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett was born in 1923 in Fife, Scotland. She attended James Gillespie's High School for Girls where she was Intermediate Dux and specialised in art, leading to an early career as a professional portrait painter. At the same time she became an executive officer in the British Civil Service working first in Edinburgh and then moving to Glasgow. At her husband's suggestion, she began writing fiction in her late thirties and has now published 22 novels. Her first book, the bestseller Game of Kings was published in 1961 and was the first of the six-part Lymond series, set in the 16th century. She has since written a series of seven modern mystery novels featuring a yachtsman called Johnson, a single 11th century novel about Macbeth, King Hereafter, and a further series of historical novels called The House of Niccolo, set in the 15th century. The eighth and last book in this series is about to be published and will be celebrated later this year by international gatherings of readers in Edinburgh and Philadelphia, the latest of many formal and informal meetings of readers. All her novels have been published on both sides of the Atlantic and have been translated into many European languages. In 1984, readers of Dunnett's work in North America launched a regular private correspondence magazine which is now worldwide and published quarterly with subscribers in Australia and New Zealand. In recent years this has expanded to the Internet and is one of many sites which now discuss her work.

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Praise for The Spring of the Ram

Praise for Dorothy Dunnett

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A storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about pace, suspense and imaginative invention

New York Times

Marvellous, breathtaking

The Times

A masterpiece of historical fiction

Washington Post

One of the greatest tale-spinners since Dumas

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Lashings of excitement, colour and subtlety

The Times

Vivid, engaging, densely plotted - are almost certainly destined to be counted among the classics of popular fiction

New York Times