Cirrus@Austlit

'Enter a world of seduction, fantasy and betrayal . . .

'Venice, 1762. As Carnevale bursts across the city revellers take to the streets in masks and lavish costumes to lose themselves in pleasure. Yet while Venetians celebrate, a nightmare is about to unfold . . .

'Laudomia Codussi, a beautiful young woman tormented by terrifying visions, takes a lover and is drawn into his dangerous obsession with opium. When a series of gruesome murders is revealed, Laudomia embarks on an urgent quest to unmask the killer. Until she can separate reality from fantasy, no one is safe - least of all herself. But in a city transformed by illusion, who can say what is real and what is not?

'In the tradition of Anne Rice and Patrick Suskind, 'Blood Of Dreams' is a lush and intoxicating odyssey through the grand palaces, decadent salons and sinister alleyways of eighteenth-century Venice - a journey from which no one will emerge unscathed.'

Source : publisher's blurb