Maggie O'Farrell's next novel is set in Renaissance Italy — see a first look

Maggie O'Farrell is moving from Stratford-upon-Avon in 1596 to Florence in 1550. Following on the heels of Hamnet, her historical fiction work inspired by Shakespeare's son, the best-selling author will release The Marriage Portrait, about the duchess Lucrezia de Medici, on Sept. 6.

In the book, the young Lucrezia lives in her family's lush palazzo stuffed to the brim with the famous art patron's valuables, enjoying a life of leisure — until her older sister dies the night before her wedding, and Lucrezia is forced to become bride to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena, and Regio. She quickly realizes that despite her powerful family background, her only power in her new life is as the potential mother to an heir — and her fate, once she produces the heir, remains perilous.

Here, EW is offering the first look at The Marriage Portrait, with an exclusive cover reveal and a peek at the first page of the book (which is available for preorder now).

Excerpt from The Marriage Portrait, by Maggie O'Farrell

A wild and lonely place

Fortezza, near Bondeno 1561

Lucrezia is taking her seat at the long dining-table, which is polished to a watery gleam and spread with dishes, inverted cups, a woven circlet of fir. Her husband is sitting down, not in his customary place at the opposite end but next to her, close enough so that she could rest her head on his shoulder, should she wish; he is unfolding his napkin and straightening his knife and moving the candle towards them both when it comes to her with a peculiar clarity, as if some coloured glass has been put in front of her eyes, or perhaps removed from them, that he intends to kill her.

She is sixteen years old, not quite a year into her marriage. They have travelled for most of the day, Lucrezia and Alfonso, using what little daylight the season offers, leaving Ferrara at dawn and riding out to what he had told her was a hunting lodge, far in the north-west of the province.

But this is no hunting lodge, is what Lucrezia had wanted to say when they reached their destination: a high-walled edifice of dark stone, flanked on one side by dense forest and on the other by a twisting meander of the Po River. She had wanted to turn in her saddle and ask, why have you brought me here?

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