In the Manner Of Smoke
Book One of the Nature of Love series
By Jess Austen
Italy, 1503. A time of breathtaking innovation in art, science, and the human heart. Fiorenza—Florence—is the radiant center of it all, where every great master lives, works, and dreams.
Leonardo da Vinci stands at the threshold of his most prolific years when he receives a commission that will echo through the ages. But the portrait is only the beginning. In the quiet hum of his bottega, he meets a young man whose presence brings a gentle, unexpected light into his life—a love as pure as it is transformative.
Yet beneath Leonardo’s brilliance lies a shadow born from a terrible moment in his youth, a wound that has never fully healed and now threatens to rise again.
In this young man, Leonardo may finally find the solace he has long sought.
Ah… The Nature of Love