In Lucia's Eyes [Hardcover]

Arthur Japin (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: CHATTO & WINDUS (RAN (July 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0701177950
• ISBN-13: 978-0701177959
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,987,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating historical tale, November 28, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

In Pasiano, Italy fourteen years old virginal servant Lucia works in a noble house. There she meets seventeen years old just as virginal seminarian student Giacomo Casanova. The youngsters fall in love until she Lucia catches smallpox that scars her face terribly. Unable to face her lover, she runs off Giacomo before fleeing across Europe.

She earns her way doing various jobs especially as a prostitute to those every other fallen woman rejected. Eventually she becomes Madam Galathee de Pompignac running a popular brothel in Amsterdam and using a sexy veil to hide her visage while also making her mysterious to her clients. Casanova, renowned as the seducer le Chevalier de Seingalt, meets his first love and they wager a war of words, wit, and a challenge to determine whose gender is the stronger.

This fascinating historical tale provides a different look at Casanova through the eyes of his first love. Her trials and tribulations turn her into a strong intelligent woman during an era when females were not expected to show any wit. The period is vividly described, though at times the window into the mid eighteenth century overwhelms the battle of the sexes. Still Arthur Japin provides a solid gender war that humanizes the legendary lover as he competes in a fierce skirmish of the mind and the body against his greatest opponent, his first love.

Harriet Klausner

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tracy Chevalier, move over, February 16, 2006

By 

Jane, reading groupie (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

I love stories that steep you in the sounds, the sights even the smells of history. The Girl With the Pearl Earring is a book I adored. But that book now seems a beginner's effort to bring the past to life. Japin writes so believably as an 18th century courtesan, the book is like a found manuscript. The language is period pitch-perfect. And this is that rare book with something for both the mind and the heart. For the mind, a subtle and fascinating meditation on sense versus sensibility (yes, I recommend this to fans of Jane Austen), reason versus feeling. For the heart, there is a irresistibly developed love story, both suspenseful and poignant. You rarely find a contemporary author with these classical skills of story telling. Bravo!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lush, rich, excellent, August 5, 2006

By 

Konrad Baumeister - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In Lucia's Eyes (Hardcover)

Japin's second novel is a beautiful work of historical fiction. His descriptions of the times, the places, the clothes and fashions and thoughts and activities - perfect. The dialogue, the attitudes, the games his people play - all dead right. Even Japin's weaving together the fictional and nonfictional source material (mostly Casanova's autobiography) is done most skillfully and believably. It is a beautiful work. I enjoyed every page of the book.