A beautiful, enthralling and powerfully resonant story of three women, separated by centuries, yet connected to each other through a thread of longing, a yearning for independence and a singular spirit - for readers of Geraldine Brooks, Sarah Winman, Maggie O'Farrell and Pip Williams.
In Judea, a woman yearns to be a mother but is outcast when she cannot bear a child. Against all convention, she takes up the art of glassblowing. A young woman in Renaissance Florence is left penniless by her feckless husband, and has to find a way to support herself and her young son. And in contemporary Australia, an Australian textile conservator, whose grief is destroying her life, is trying to make a fresh start.
These three women each want something that seems unattainable - and it will take all their courage, creativity and determination to achieve it. Each woman knows what she must do. But what these women don't know is that their stories are inextricably linked.
A stunning, sweeping historical novel that takes the reader from the savagery of King Herod's Judea and the tumultuous, artistic city of Renaissance Florence right through to the present day, One Illumined Thread celebrates the power and creative spirit of the female heart; the unshakeable bond between mother and child; and women's eternal fight to overcome oppression, as three women separated by centuries find freedom through an extraordinary connection.
