From Publishers Weekly
This deliciously creepy third installment in Lee's Secret Books of Venus series (following Faces Under Water and Saint Fire) deals with death and the question of whether humans have souls. Written from the perspective of Bartolome da Loura di An'Santa, a Settera Master of the Guild of Gravemakers, the story centers on a longstanding feud regarding disputed burial grounds of two powerful families. Like the Italian city-state of Venice on which it's patterned, Venus includes islands, canals, lagoons and little land for Christian burial. Any plot of ground set aside for graves is highly sought after, so when two of the most powerful families in Venus squabble over a patch of earth, the outcome is a vendetta that goes on for generations. At some point, far away from the origins of the feud, a girl from the della Scorpia family, who is betrothed to an evil old shell of a man, takes a fancy to a no-name painter's assistant, loses her virginity and tries to run off with her lover. Unfortunately, when word reaches a member of the other side of the vendetta, the girl and her lover meet a gruesome end. From this awful event comes the winding tale that entangles humans, spirits, death, life and the earth itself. The City of Venus casts a gloomy, ghostly shadow over the plot, and several wickedly ingenious deaths (including death by flamingo) serve to underline Lee's well-earned reputation as a master of dark fantasy. FYI: The author has won many World Fantasy Awards as well as the August Derleth Award.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
An intense rivalry between the noble houses of Barbarons and della Scorpia over a prime piece of burial ground escalates into treachery as a daughter of the della Scorpia family falls prey to a vicious plot. Mysterious events dog both houses until a self-effacing gravedigger manages to uncover the dark secret behind the feud and discovers some remarkable truths about his own past. Lee's mystical alternate history of a 16th-century city much like Venice continues with a powerfully told tale of youthful passion and ghostly revenge. Libraries owning the previous two books in the series (Faces Under Water; Saint Fire) should add this elegantly written sequel to their fantasy collection. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Lee's latest alchemical Secret Book of Venus is an eerie, haunting romance--a story told by a "gravemaker" of lives gone awry, the supernatural son of one feuding family and the natural daughter of the other. The feuding parties are two great families of Venus, the della Scorpias and the Barbarons, contending over a parcel of land on the isle of the dead. The tangled threads out of which the tale is spun are drawn out from Meralda della Scorpia's tortured, terrible death and by the son she bore in Venus' lagoons, who swears vengeance on her killers. Bartolome the gravemaker learns the almost unbelievable truth of his role in these events, and the connections between his story, Meralda's, and Beatrixa Barbaron's, from his mistress, Flavia. Death is, after all, not always the final word, he learns, and the bed of earth, in particular, doesn't necessarily stop anyone's story. In Lee's alternate Venice, the sixteenth century is beautifully transmogrified into a world in which spirits walk the streets and heaven can be visited. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Los Angeles Times Book Review
Lee's images pull the reader in with mysterious ephemera on the edges of sight.

Locus
Tanith Lee is an elegant, ironic stylist...one of our very best authors.

Book Description
The third book in Tanith Lee's compelling series based on alchemy and the elements focuses on the element of earth. It is a haunting journey to a parallel version of sixteenth-century Venice, where a fierce territorial rivalry between two noble families-the della Scorpias and the Barbarons-unearths a supernatural force from beneath the placid surface of the canals and rotting understructure of the city.

The struggle between the two families for space on the Isle of the Dead, the overcrowded burial ground for generations of Venetian nobility, becomes more and more heated, and fourteen-year-old Meralda della Scorpia is forced to pay the ultimate price. But as the years pass on, parties complicit in her disappearance-from both houses-begin to suffer the consequences in a series of shocking deaths that could emanate from none other than a supernatural foe. As these bizarre events throw the city into a panic, a humble apprentice gravedigger is left to sort out the mysteries-an effort that will enable him to unearth the secrets of his own shadowy past.

About the Author
Tanith Lee is one of the leading fantasy authors writing today. She has written over 50 novels and short story collections, among them the best-selling Flat Earth series. She is also the author of another Overlook fantasy series, The Secret Books of Paradys. She has won the World Fantasy Award numerous times as well as the August Derleth Award.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The third book in Tanith Lee's compelling series based on alchemy and the elements focuses on the element of earth. It is a haunting journey to a parallel version of sixteenth-century Venice, where a fierce territorial rivalry between two noble families -- the della Scorpias and the Barbarons -- unearths a supernatural force from beneath the placid surface of the canals and rotting understructure of the city.

The struggle between the two families for space on the Isle of the Dead, the overcrowded burial ground for generations of Venetian nobility, becomes more and more heated, and fourteen-year-old Meralda della Scorpia is forced to pay the ultimate price. But as the years pass on, parties complicit in her disappearance, from both houses, begin to suffer the consequences in a series of shocking deaths that could come from none other than a supernatural foe. As these bizarre events throw the city into a panic, a humble apprentice gravedigger is left to sort out the mysteries -- an effort that will enable him to unearth the secrets of his own shadowy past.

FROM THE CRITICS

Locus

Tanith Lee is an elegant,ironic stylist...one of our very best authors.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Lee's images pull the reader in with mysterious ephemera on the edges of sight.

Millennium Science Fiction and Fantasy

Few writers today can match the sheer beauty and inventiveness of Tanith Lee's writing.

Publishers Weekly

This deliciously creepy third installment in Lee's Secret Books of Venus series (following Faces Under Water and Saint Fire) deals with death and the question of whether humans have souls. Written from the perspective of Bartolome da Loura di An'Santa, a Settera Master of the Guild of Gravemakers, the story centers on a longstanding feud regarding disputed burial grounds of two powerful families. Like the Italian city-state of Venice on which it's patterned, Venus includes islands, canals, lagoons and little land for Christian burial. Any plot of ground set aside for graves is highly sought after, so when two of the most powerful families in Venus squabble over a patch of earth, the outcome is a vendetta that goes on for generations. At some point, far away from the origins of the feud, a girl from the della Scorpia family, who is betrothed to an evil old shell of a man, takes a fancy to a no-name painter's assistant, loses her virginity and tries to run off with her lover. Unfortunately, when word reaches a member of the other side of the vendetta, the girl and her lover meet a gruesome end. From this awful event comes the winding tale that entangles humans, spirits, death, life and the earth itself. The City of Venus casts a gloomy, ghostly shadow over the plot, and several wickedly ingenious deaths (including death by flamingo) serve to underline Lee's well-earned reputation as a master of dark fantasy. (Sept.) FYI: The author has won many World Fantasy Awards as well as the August Derleth Award. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal