The plot turns menacing when Sofonisba joins the Spanish court as lady-in-waiting to Queen Isabella and makes an enemy of the Cardinal of Burgos, who threatens to ruin her reputation and to cut short her career before it has begun. The story shines especially bright and warm in the first half, as we get to know Sofi, called so lovingly by her family, struggling to pursue her calling in the home of a doting father, who educates his daughter and promotes her genius regardless of the contemporary disregard for female creativity.

What reader could not fall in love with a heroine-a female Renaissance painter, no less-as she strives to preserve the artistic integrity and honesty of her work? In her debut biographical novel, Donna DiGiuseppe features the travails of the fascinatingly prodigious Sofonisba Anguissola, a portraitist praised by Leonardo and Vasari, who rose from obscure beginnings in Cremona, Lombardy to portray King Phillip II, his wife, and other notorious personages of her 16th-century world. It’s a perfect fit for art lovers seeking a lovely to-and-fro escape through time.Lady in Ermine: The Story of a Woman Who Painted the Renaissance

This story of art and artists across time is peppered with colorful characters, sexy interludes, and instances of poetic prose. May, meanwhile, is more inclined to pursue writing poetry than remaining in academia, and Bernini couldn’t agree more. Her visits with the great sculptor are often more satisfying than her current life, where she’s dating a fellow professor and her surly department head is plotting to end her career. She soon learns that she can slide effortlessly between that past and her present, although she isn’t certain how the time travel is achieved. Even before the first day in Rome is finished, May is transported back to the Renaissance and interacts with her idol, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 500 years in the past. James, she’s pleased by his playful attitude and intrigued by his hints about the malleability of time. When May meets their tour guide, George St. May Gold, a 26-year-old adjunct art history professor from California, has joined her colleagues on their Renaissance club’s trip to Italy, where they visit Assisi, Florence, Rome, Siena, and Venice. Dacus’s debut is a delightful dance between present-day and Renaissance Italy, and will submerge readers in the art of Bernini, Michelangelo, and more.

The Renaissance Club by Rachel Dacus