Poinsettia Girl is a deeply moving tale of love, loss, and the transformative power of music.

 

Set against the evocative backdrop of early eighteenth-century Venice, Poinsettia Girl: The Story of Agata della Pieta by Jennifer Wizbowski brings to life the hidden world of the Ospedale della Pietà and the gifted girls whose music captivated the city from behind gilded grilles. Inspired by the true story of Agata della Pietà, this richly imagined novel follows a young orphan whose extraordinary talent becomes both her refuge and her calling. As Agata navigates grief, ambition, and the rigid boundaries placed upon her future, Wizbowski explores enduring questions of identity, belonging, and sacrifice. Celebrated with a Bronze Medal in the 2025 Yarde Book Promotions Book of the Year Awards, Poinsettia Girl is a deeply moving tale of love, loss, and the transformative power of music.

✔️ Inspired by a true story

✔️ Set in 18th-century Venice

✔️ A hidden world of orphan musicians

✔️ Music, love, and sacrifice

✔️ A powerful coming-of-age tale

✔️ Bronze Medal Winner – Yarde Book Promotions 2025

✔️ A profoundly moving story

Check out the blurb:

Ten-year-old Agata's world is shaken at the sudden
death of her mother. Left only with her egregious father, a working musician in Venice, her ailing grandmother sends her to the well-known orphanage, hidden from everything she's ever known. Agata auditions for the conservatory style music school where music is both salvation and spectacle. Hidden behind ornate metal grates, adorned with poinsettias in their hair, the singers are veiled in mystery, their ethereal music drawing noble audiences, including gilded young men who see them as treasures-not only for their sound but as coveted marriage prizes. Just as she reaches the height of her musical journey, a marriage proposal from someone outside the audience tempts her with the promise of a new life-a return to the old neighborhood she's longed for and a home she barely remembers. Torn between the music that has defined her and the hope of belonging to a family, Agata must confront the most profound question of her life: is her purpose rooted in the music that shaped her, or in the love that might free her?

Ready to step into the hidden world of music, longing, and choice? Poinsettia Girl: The Story of Agata della Pieta is available now in ebook, paperback, and hardback. Discover Agata’s unforgettable journey through love, loss, and the transformative power of music by purchasing your copy today at all major retailers HERE. Let Venice’s most secret voices sing to you.

Jennifer Wizbowski spent her childhood days lost among the spines of her favorite books. Inspired by the daffodil fields of Wordsworth and the babbling brooks of Shakespeare, she earned her bachelor’s in English literature, a minor in music, and a secondary teaching credential, then wrote freelance for local business journals, taught in classrooms, and authored a Teen and Tween column for a parent magazine—all while raising her family. 

As those years ended, she knew it was the right time to pursue her lifelong aspiration of bringing her own books to life. She now devotes herself to illuminating everyday women’s stories often lost in the shadows of history, revealing how they became heroines of their own time and place.

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