Product Description

This book is aimed at age-range: 12+. This is the sequel to the international best-selling "City of Masks". The time period is the same - C16 Talia as a parallel world version of Italy - but the setting has moved from Bellezza (Venice) to Remora (Siena). The main character in this book is Georgia - who has a love of horses. She is desperate to buy a little, dusty winged horse that has appeared in a local antiques shop. This little, winged horse will prove to be the talisman (as the notebook was for Lucien in City of Masks) that will transport Georgia to Siena - right into the rivalries and the high-octane excitement of the hugely compeititive Stellata horse race - and more. Mary Hoffman has proved herself a mistress of a narrative tour-de-force with "City of Masks" and this sequel will not disappoint.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #276943 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

About the Author
Mary Hoffman is a best-selling children's author and reviewer. She is the author of the picture book 'Amazing Grace' which is an international best-seller. Her first novel for Bloomsbury, 'Stravaganza: City of Masks' sold over 85,000 hardback copies pre-publication. She is a complete afficionado of Italy, and spends as much time as she can there - all her love for Italy has been infused into the Stravaganza series. She is currently doing an Italian literature course. Mary is also the editor of Armadillo, a children's revew magazine. She has three grown-up children and lives with her husband in Carterton, outside Oxford.

Customer Reviews

V good book
I thought that this book was just as good as the first book. Georgia manages to stravagate to Remora - our worlds version of Siena in Italy. And she meets up with Lucien (Now called Luciano because he was translated in the last book). She has to work out what part she has to play in this world and what job she has to do. Its ending is very satisfactory.
it is a good sequel as Lucien is still in the story. This was a good factor because he made such a good charachter in Stravaganza City Of masks that it would have been terrible for him to not have come back.

There is not one moment when it is boring. I would reccomend this book to people over the age of 10.

Better than the first
The sequal to "stravaganza City of Masks" is a amazing book and its better than the first. Marry Hoffman has out done herself in this book. The book contains old charectors and new ones in a totally different city. It see's Georgia transported to another world just like our Italy Rome but with big difrences. The main part in the story is when Luciano,formally from our world,and Georgia help transport a handicap boy to our world to get treatment on his legs,as in his world it is the 16th centuary,but he will never be able to return again. the twist is the boy is part of a mean but powrful family and his father will do anything to get this way of transporting to other worlds.

A great read
When Georgia finally saves up to buy a model of an Etruscan winged horse, she knows she must keep it away from her stepbrother Russell, who lives to make Georgia's life a misery.

That night, she falls asleep with the winged horse in her hands, wishing she could be in another world, far away from her troubled life.

When she wakes, Georgia is in a completely different world and city. She has Stravagated to Remora, much like Siena, in Talia like Italy. The Etruscan horse is her means of getting there.

Georgia balances her life well, living in London by day and Talia by night. She befriends other Stravagante and is swept up in the heat of the Stellata, a horse race in which each twelfth of Remora takes part in. The twelfths are named by the zodiac signs.

City of Stars is a refreshing, exciting novel which will leave you hooked. Mary Hoffman has created a world that is totally believable. Talia is a delight. It will keep readers wanting for more. Thank goodness City of Flowers has come, the wait was unbearable once I heard there was a third book.