A novel about power, connection, and what it means to truly see and be seen, Imminence offers an account of the French entry into Florence and the collapse of the famous Medici regime in autumn 1494, a portrait of communities in the grips of perceived tyranny, and a meditation on the invisible forces, real and imagined, that act upon and within us in times of stress and great change. Combining fiction and fact, imagined stories and documented histories, Imminence explores political history, autocracy, sovereignty, and freedom as well as the experience of being a woman in Renaissance Italy.

Taking the dramatic events of the French descent into Italy in the fall of 1494 as its context, Imminence recounts the riveting and tumultuous history of the dangerously divided Florentine city-state through the eyes and the experiences of an imagined lay visionary and her uncommon ally who must act expeditiously from the seer’s precarious position as temporary resident in an elite nunnery tied to the highest echelons of political power to ensure that neither the republic nor their loved ones succumb to the negative impact of three looming threats: civil war, tyranny, and invasion by the approaching King Charles VIII and his army of unprecedented size and destructive power.  

A vulnerable agent for political change, Isabella is caught in an alarming conflict between the increasingly autocratic de facto ruler of Florence, Piero, and his more popular, politically revolutionary cousin Lorenzo, her former lover, now a secret vassal of the French king. Veronica, Isabella’s deceased aunt and the novel’s narrator, is a reluctant witness to events who works to assist and protect her niece while struggling to make sense of her own ambiguous presence in the world. Will the French king arrive as friend or foe, and whom will he support as leader of Florence? Will Isabella’s inspired actions help her ex-lover and her beloved Florence, or will they condemn her and her family to exile or death? Will Veronica find a way to be heard or seen when it matters most?

If you would like to listen to a professionally recorded reading of the first chapter of Imminence, I have made one available for screening here.

For more on the historical context of the novel, see my scholarly article on the French descent into Italy in autumn 1494 here.