Retribution. Capulet, #5

"Before Romeo met Juliet, their families met in Verona. It wasn't love at first sight." Welcome to the CAPULET series - a sprawling six-part prequel - an epic tale of ambition, passion, sacrifice and the brutal cost of revenge. Long before the tale of tragic love that defined a generation, the Capulet name was forged in the powder keg of 1434 France. Their ancestral saga is not merely a romance, but a high-stakes chronicle of loyalty, heroism, seductions and betrayals that will launch a blood-soaked feud that consumes more than one generation.
Two children in Lyon, Armand de Capulet and Ilaria Marchand, are promised at birth. But in a world of shifting power, their union becomes the flashpoint for a conflict that will force them to abandon innocence for the cold, calculated necessities of survival. Their story is told through the eyes of Marcel Poquelin, a sharp-tongued roguish musician who finds himself the unlikely chronicler of their remarkable rise.
Through Marcel's irreverent lens-whose favored exclamations are "Cupid's Balls!" and "Bite my bare ass!"-you'll witness the sometimes elegant, sometimes bawdy, yet often dangerous climb of two innocents, learning to navigate a ruthless elite world of excess. But as the Capulets rise, that world darkens. From the war-torn citadels of France to the hidden, hedonistic depths of Italy, Armand and Ilaria are drawn into a volatile web of faction rivalry, dooming curses and religious fanaticism.
And the moment they enter the walls of fair Verona, the might of two mercenary houses (Montecchi and Paris) await them. Both bristle with arrogance, appetites for power and pleasure, and a contempt for any but those of their factions. Both will stop at nothing to have their way in everything. Both see the naïve, newlywed Capulets as easy prey. Yet, Armand and Ilaria's greatest enemy may be fate itself.
Gifted with terrifying, accurate premonitions, Ilaria finds herself guided along their path by a succession of mystics, offering windows and warnings to what lies ahead. Every vision is heeded, every disaster confronted - until the warning of a final, catastrophic vision becomes lost in a swirl of erupting events. As the series evolves, from the vibrant ambitions of their youth, into the haunting sacrifices of their adulthood together, Ilaria and Armand (with their irreverent shadow Marcel) must confront a brutal truth which emerges: the harder they fight to change their future, the tighter the grip of destiny becomes. CAPULET is the genesis of a time-honored tale told for the modern reader: elegant and poetic at times but also filled with grit and humour, through encounters that are often raw, provocative and relentlessly human.
1 fated pair. 3 mighty factions. 1 burning question: How did Romeo and Juliet's families come to be at each other's throats? But who among them will pay the ultimate sacrifice to make it so? As the seductions mount and body counts rise, every dark question is answered. Book 5 - Retribution. The epic prequel continues. One day after the extraordinary events of the foot race festival, one year after the Montecchi primo don's death (from the duel against Armand de Capulet) the blood feud finally explodes onto the streets of Verona.
The body count rises. Two are dead. Many on the Montecchi side (Romeo's family) are suspected. In a dangerous game of cat and mouse, one potential target is smuggled out of Verona. But with a son now born to both sides (Romeo and Thibault) the factions meet to negotiate peace as a Montecchi rebel (their fallen prima donna Esmeralda) schemes to destroy any hope for it.