Leonardo's Swans

Born into wealth amid the political and artistic foment of the Italian Renaissance, worldly and ambitious Isabella and naïve Beatrice Este, sisters and rivals, compete for the attentions of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan--even though he marries Beatrice--and must choose between family loyalty and survival amid the treachery of a dangerous era. Simultaneous.

KAREN ESSEX is the author of Kleopatra (Warner, 2001) and its sequel Pharoah (Warner, 2002), two biographical novels about the queen of Egypt which she has adapted into a screenplay for Warner Bros. She has also adapted Anne Rice's novel The Mummy of Ramses the Damned into a screenplay for Titanic director James Cameron and 20th Century Fox, and has written a screenplay about Kamehameha, the first king of Hawaii, for Columbia/Tristar.

Essex's articles, essays and profiles have been published in Vogue, Playboy, The L.A. Weekly, L.A. Style, and many other periodicals. After being awarded highest honors from the Los Angeles Press Club for her thought-provoking cover story about the missing 1950s pinup icon Bettie Page, Essex co-authored the biography Bettie Page: Life of a Pinup Legend (Stoddart, 1996). Essex is the first and only journalist with whom the reclusive Ms. Page has ever agreed to meet and cooperate.

Essex was born and raised in New Orleans. She graduated from Tulane University, attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University, and received an MFA in Writing from Goddard College in Vermont.
From the Hardcover edition.