From the jewelled palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, this is a story of one woman's irrepressible ambition and rise to the top, of loss and triumph, and of who we choose to remember and those who lie forgotten.

The Instrumentalist
By Harriet Constable

Publication Date: 15th August 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Page Length: 320 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction

 I will be remembered. My life will mean something.

Venice. 1704. In this city of glittering splendour, desperation and destitution are never far away. At the Ospedale della Pietà, abandoned orphan girls are posted every day through a tiny gap in the wall.

Anna Maria is just one of the three hundred girls growing up within the Pietà's walls – but she already knows she is different. Obsessive and gifted, she is on a mission to become Venice's greatest violinist and composer, and in her remarkable world of colour and sound, it seems like nothing will stop her.

But the odds are stacked against an orphan girl – so when the maestro selects her as his star pupil, Anna Maria knows she must do everything in her power to please this difficult, brilliant man. But as Anna Maria's star rises, threatening to eclipse that of her mentor, the dream she has so single-mindedly pursued is thrown into peril…

From the jewelled palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, this is a story of one woman's irrepressible ambition and rise to the top, of loss and triumph, and of who we choose to remember and those who lie forgotten.

The Instrumentalist is currently available on NetGalley.

Pre-order your copy today:

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Harriet Constable

Portrait by Sophie Davidson.

Harriet Constable is a writer and filmmaker based in London. Her debut novel, The Instrumentalist, sold to Bloomsbury following a seven-way auction and will publish globally in 2024. The book is inspired by the true story of Anna Maria della Pietà, who was an orphan, musical prodigy and student of Antonio Vivaldi.

Harriet’s journalism and documentary work is featured in outlets including The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, NPR, The Economist. She produced and directed the 2019 and 2020 BBC News Awards, has produced for BBC News at Six and Ten and is a Rough Guide to Kenya co-author. 

Originally from London, Harriet worked at the Financial Times before spending several years in Africa. Previously based in Nairobi and then Johannesburg, she was a 2016/17 board member of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of East Africa, and has received hostile environment and emergency first-aid training. 

Harriet holds a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Birmingham and attended the filmmaking summer school at Columbia University. She is is a Pulitzer Center grantee and a BAFTA Connect member. 

Awards and recognition:

Part of the team that made the BAFTA award winning 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room 

Selected for BBC Reel’s Best of 2021 for The Antikythera Mechanism, which has 8.9 million hits on YouTube

Finalist, 2021 Online Journalism Awards

Longlisted, 2021 Freelance Writing Awards

Fired Up aired at the China Women’s Film Festival in 2019

Shortlisted, 2018 Travel Media Award

Shortlisted, 2017 Young Travel Writer of the Year

Selected for the ‘Pick of From Our Own Correspondent’

Connect with Harriet:

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