SARAH DUNANT In the Company of the Courtesan **(*)

A Renaissance bodice-ripper that's a bit too self-indulgent to be utterly gripping. But not bad.

It's about a 16th-century courtesan who flees the sack of Rome and arrives in Venice with her dwarf/pimp who narrates the story. Together they set up business and achieve their aim of reaching out to the cream of Venetian soicety, with the help of a mysterious, blind crippled woman who many view as a witch.

The detail is quite interesting, but the plot's rubbish.

Think Barbara Taylor Bradford meets The Lady of the Camellias.