A couple of years ago I found her through some recommendations I got from a friend and the book sounded really interesting – The Birth of Venus. It went on the shortlist for the book group last year but it didn't get picked up so I still haven't managed to read it yet. She then wrote a second book with the same setting – In the Company of the Courtesan – which is about a prostitute and her dwarf companion: 
Product Description
1527. While the Papal city of Rome burns – brutally sacked …
