The Carnival Of Ash

An extravagant, lyrical novel about a city of poets and librarians at the height of the Renaissance. A city that never was.

A City of Poets and Dreamers, Liars and Cheats…

Tommaso Cellini, celebrated ruler of Cadenza, is dead, and the city mourns. For Carlo Mazzoni, an aspiring poet, it was the day of his arrival in the City of Words and the end of his dreams to walk side-by-side with the great man, two artists together.

For Vittoria — known to all but a handful as the famed ink maid Hypatia — the death of a ruler is less troubling than her sadness and inability to write. Without it, her admirers will leave her, and with it her livelihood.

With its ruler dead, the city plunges into turmoil amid rumours of war with its rival Venice. Surrounded by murder, intrigue, revenge and revolution, they must rely on new friends and sinister acquaintances to find their paths to freedom.

Thomas Beckerlegge grew up in a market town in the northwest of England, dreaming of becoming a writer. He studied history at Jesus College, Oxford and won the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for his first novel, Darkside, at the age of 25, writing as Tom Becker. Tom lives in London with his wife, baby son, and a horde of shadowy creatures that he keeps confined within the pages of his notebook.