What Casanova Told Me: A Novel,Used

From Publishers Weekly The mystery of Casanova's last great love lies at the center of Swan's alluring novel (after The Wives of Bath). In the present, Luce Adams, a young archivist, and Lee, the woman who was her late mother's lover, are uneasy travel companions on their way to Crete to host a memorial service for Kitty Adams, a flamboyant scholar famous for her controversial work on ancient goddess cults. On the way, Luce must deliver important family documents to a library in Venice: the diary of ancestor Asked For Adams, the spirited and independent daughter of a cousin of President John Adams; another document that appears to be written in Arabic; and letters in Casanova's hand. The library really wants the letters, while Luce becomes fascinated with Asked For's diary. Asked For disappeared while in Venice with her father in 1797; her diary reveals that she left with the aging Casanova and traveled with him throughout the Mediterranean on much the same route that Luce herself is taking. The mystery of Asked For's fateas well as that of Luce's motherunfolds through the alternating perspectives of past and present. Though the many parallels between Asked For and Luce strain credibility, their stories weave together well and Asked For, in particular, has a bright, engaging voice. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Product Description A dazzlingly imagined novel that embraces two centuries, two young women, a longlost journal, and the mystery of the legendary Casanova's last great love. It's 1797, and an aging Casanova has returned to Venice in disguise to elude the authorities. There he meets Asked For Adams, the niece of American president John Adams, who is accompanying her father on a trade mission, just as Napoleon's army invades, throwing the city into chaos. Casanova convinces Asked For to abandon her future as the wife of a Yankee farmer and set out with him on a dangerous adventure through postByzantine Greece to Istanbul, which she records in intimate detail in her travel journaluntil the account ends suddenly.Two hundred years later this journal comes into the possession of Luce Adams, Asked For's twentyfirstcentury descendant, an awkward and shy young archivist grieving her mother's death. En route to her mother's memorial service in Crete, accompanied by her mother's lover, and entrusted with delivering precious letters by Casanova to the Venetian library, she falls under the spell of the two adventurers and becomes determined to find out what happened to them.As their stories interweave, both young women are touched by the spirit of Casanova, a man whose appetite for life and generous spirit ignites possibility everywhere he goes. By the end, Luce uncovers the fate not only of Asked For but of her own mother, and she finds herself set free by what she learns about travel, selfinvention, loss, acceptance, and, of course, love. From Booklist Swan, Canadian author of five previous works of fiction, including The Wives of Bath (1993), has artfully rendered an imaginative novel that spans centuries and continents. The lives of President John Adams' descendants, eighteenthcentury Asked For Adams and twentyfirstcentury Luce Adams, are linked as Asked For comes to life through the journal she kept while traveling with her father in Italy and the famed sensualist Casanova in Greece. The story unfolds as Luce, a shy, awkward archivist, travels to Venice and Crete with her mother's erstwhile partner, Lee, a feminist scholar. While Luce tries to remain focused on delivering recently discovered family artifacts to a Venetian library and attending a memorial service for her mother's recent and tragic death, she ultimately realizes that her journey is about selfdiscovery, love, and the healing of loss through acceptance. Swan writes with thoughtful, inviting prose that promises intrigue for all fiction readers, and she fills the stor