The Mapmakers’ Secret T.1

Dive into the 17th century with this pulse-pounding epic of adventurers searching for seafaring maps at the royal courts of Europe’s capitals! Rome, 1628: Apollonia is a young and gifted painter trying to make a name for herself in a domain reserved for men. When she falls victim to terrible injustice, she must flee the city disguised as a monk. She reaches Amsterdam, where Cornelis Van Vliet, a merchant for the East India Company, is hiring young foreigners ready to leave Europe at any price. Their mission? To recover maritime maps closely guarded as state secrets, in order to find the hidden continent of the Pacific! Aboard the good ship Hope, Apollonia sets sail with an astonishing crew of companions, led on by the mad dream of a land at world’s end that will prove more just and equitable.

Sophie Marvaud has a gift for plunging readers into the past with immediately endearing characters and highly precise descriptions that are never ponderous or didactic.