The passion

Set against the sweep of the Napoleonic Wars, Jeanette Winterson's The Passion braids together two unforgettable voices. Henri is a naive young Frenchman who idolizes Napoleon and follows him to war, ending up as the emperor's personal chicken-cook and witnessing the grandeur and horror of empire from its strange margins. Villanelle is the web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, a bisexual croupier who gambles with hearts as easily as coins — until she loses her own to a married woman and must literally get it back.

When Henri and Villanelle's paths cross amid the frozen catastrophe of Napoleon's Russian campaign, their stories fuse into a single meditation on obsession, chance, and the reckless things we do for love. Winterson blends historical fiction with fable and magic, moving between the killing fields of Europe and the labyrinthine canals of Venice.

Lyrical, sensual, and strange, The Passion is a modern classic about the many faces of passion — for a person, for power, for the game itself.