At the beginning of the novel, Barbarelli – or ‘Zorzo’ as he is called throughout the book – is finding life difficult. Work is becoming hard to find, the competition from other artists is fierce and Zorzo’s debts are increasing. He’s responsible not only for himself, but also for his team of young apprentices and assistants, so he urgently needs to find some way of gaining commissions from rich clients. An opportunity arises when a wealthy German merchant, Jakob Fugger, arrives in Venice and is said to be looking for an artist to paint an altarpiece for St Peter’s Basilica. When Zorzo hears that Fugger also possesses a new colour, a pigment known as ‘prince orient’, he becomes even more determined to bring himself to the merchant’s attention.

colour chart | BS Colour fans, cards British Standard BS 4800 colour chart | BS Colour fans, cards

An aggressive war is being waged against the Japanese. The United States is now starting to use a new tactic of island-hopping, resulting in the slow crumbling of the Japanese air force and navy. Having a novel set in Venice all about painting is right up my street, given I love art and Venice is one of my favourite cities. Having the lead as Giorgione / Zorzo with cameos from lots of his famous contemporaries makes for the perfect setting for historical fiction. I adored this book, I haven’t read any books around this era, but will definitely be looking out for more. With the in depth description, the atmosphere of the time period as well as the art world is brought out. It could be a dangerous time and Zorzo doesn’t even realize the danger he’s in when his need for success to take care of himself and the people he employs sets him on a course to procure the mysterious new color a wealthy merchant holds. Zorzo is absorbed in his work painting Sybille the foreign wife of a wealthy man who holds the secret to a new color pigment that can raise Zorzo above all the other grand artists while conspiracy swirls around him and the plague approaches Venice. Damian Dibben’s previous novel, Tomorrow, was a fascinating and unusual story of an immortal dog searching for his master across two centuries (it was better than it sounds, honestly!). I was curious to see what his next book, The Colour Storm, would be like, but it turns out that it’s a much more conventional historical novel this time. It's also a very good one!From a flying plane, you might see a full-circle rainbow. Credit: NOAA. What happens in the water droplets? Use the light effect drop-down menu to customize effects like flashing, breaking, and synchronizing to your CPU temperature. What to expect – details on the types of impact forecast and an indication of how likely those impacts are When painters were so charged with purpose, so voracious, so rebellious against everything that had gone before, that they described the age as a colour storm.’

The Colour Storm (Audio Download): Damian Dibben, Ben Allen

This book completely absorbed me into 16th century Italy, famous painters, love and above all, colour. This book is full of it in every sense. I found this story intriguing - the mystery of this unknown new pigment brought to Italy by the richest man in Europe. We follow Giorgione ‘Zorzo’ Barbarelli, an artist whose career hangs in the balance, commissioned to paint a portrait of this man’s wife, Sybille. Thinking to be in favour he is embroiled in conspiracy, becoming ever more desperate, will this woman be the key to his success or downfall?

Competitive painters. A new, undiscovered colour that would propel a career. A mysterious, beyond-wealthy couple—a businessman who’s the richest man in Europe, and his kept wife who’s the most beautiful woman a person could set eyes on. With the bubonic plague a looming threat, these elements explode together like paint on a canvas. When he hears about a new colour being brought to Venice, he wants it – and secures a commission to paint the merchant’s wife’s portrait. There is no denying how hauntingly beautiful this story is. The author paints a picture of the setting so clearly, the beauty of its architecture, the stench, the sheer realism of it is mesmerizing.