Christobel Kent was born in London and grew up in London and Essex, including a stint on the Essex coast on a Thames barge with three siblings and four step-siblings, before reading English at Cambridge. She has worked in publishing and TEFL teaching, and has lived in Modena, in northern Italy, and in Florence.
Kent is the author of The Viper, the latest in the Florentine Sandro Cellini series and Sunday Times bestseller The Loving Husband, among other thrillers.
At the Guardian she tagged ten of her favorite books about Florence, including:
Innocence by Penelope FitzgeraldRead about the other entries on the list.
An exception to my rule [promising a list of books that "reflect (Florence's) dangerous, seductive chiaroscuro], Fitzgerald’s Florentine excursion is the slow, enchanting love story between a communist doctor from the south and the shy daughter of eccentric nobility in the 50s. Stringing a tightrope between comedy and tragedy, Fitzgerald evokes Florence’s specific atmosphere: a combination of deep melancholy and a beauty that threatens to overwhelm. Mist and shadow are Fitzgerald’s colours, and diffidence is her mode, but the effect is to be absorbed and transported entirely into the city, and a place of the heart.
--Marshal Zeringue
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