No, this is not a site about cities that have been purely imagined, it's a site about how our imagination spices up our ideas of real cities and mixes with our memories to help draw our mental maps. We all have our favourite places and like to read novels and watch films about them. 

I love London, Venice and Florence and so I made this site, with its lists and reviews of all sorts of fiction set in these three cities.

Each city now also has its share of indulgent side pages dealing with, for example, London's cakes, Lost Florence and Venice's cats.

I've also been writing trip reports as a service to travellers who share my obsessions - art, ice cream, cats, and cakes.

The most recent trips to the site's three cities were
Venice in 2011  Florence in May 2012
and Florence in September 2012
There's also now a Trips Menu
 

In case you're curious, this is Me and my other site is...



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All suggestions and flattery gratefully received

To search within this site go to Google, put in your search terms as usual, and then type in site:fictionalcities.com


This site now has its own Facebook page...
Friends of Fictional Cities and the Churches of Venice
Click on the link and Like the page for regular news updates.

And if you want to buy any of my books please click HERE
 

click on the word NEWS above for more news (with photos!)

19.5.2013
My spies tell me that a brand new German Brunetti TV episode was broadcast last week. They called it Auf Treu und Glauben (In Good Faith), but we know it as A Question of Belief. The action mostly centred around Cannaregio this time, with a funeral in the Madonna Dell'Orto.

9.5.2013
Back from a wonderful week in Munich to wonderful news from Venice - billionaire art collector Francois Pinault's hated statue of the naked boy with the frog has been taken down for the last and final time. Read the story here. And staying with good news: David Adams Cleveland, who wrote With a gem-like flame, a Venice-set novel we liked, writes with news of a new novel, Love's attraction also with a Venice setting. Expect a review very soon.

30.4 - 7.5.2013
I'm spending a week in Munich, and you can follow my
Munich Trip Report
or not, it's entirely up to you.

20.4.2013
Episode 2 of Da Vinci's Demons was less flashy and less spectacular, faked-Florence-wise, but provided enough flavoursome plot-thickening to hold the attention. In recent promotional interviews Tom Riley, the actor who plays Leonardo, has promised that episodes 3 and 4 will deal with our hero's sexuality and the fact of its not being merely hetero. So we'll wait and see how this is handled. Also, it's just been announced that there will be a second season, and that two Marvel comics writers have been hired to write some episodes.

13.4.2013
 The slick new series about Leonardo's early life Da Vinci's Demons has just started and it's as authentic as you'd imagine, i.e. not very. The creator David S. Goyer has previously been involved in superhero films and video games, which as a keen watcher of superhero films and player of  video games I should not be too sniffy about, I suppose, but the concentration on what's fashionable over what really happened makes this so much more a product of its time than of all time. Not that I'm not hooked, though. And we still have the new Dan Brown, which is also set in Florence, top look forward to in a month's time. And I'm sure that it'll be just oozing authenticity.

2.4.2013
Keep it to yourself (winks and taps side of nose) but by means nefarious I have obtained an e-copy of the new Donna Leon, The Golden Egg, so expect a review before the week's end. And for after the Donna I've just received The Exiled Blade, the final part of Jon Courtenay Grimwood's Assassini trilogy, printed on actual paper!

24.3.2013
 Just so you know - I've just booked a week in Venice in late June. Last year I didn't visit even the once, so this'll be my first trip there since September 2011. As this site's hit rate has gone unprecedentedly down this past year I was thinking that maybe I needed to refocus on Venice, as it's the most popular city and I had maybe allowed my refreshed enthusiasm for Florence to hold too much sway. But yesterday's Guardian had a review by Christobel Kent (whose new book I've just reviewed) of the Rupert Thomson book I reviewed last month. They are the only new books I've reviewed so far this year, and both are set in Florence. Next week there's a new drama-documentary on Sky about Leonardo Da Vinci, starring Peter Capaldi, that's getting very good previews indeed. And there's a new US TV series called Da Vinci's Demons, which premieres in Florence on April 2nd, with its first broadcast later in the month. It was filmed largely in...Swansea Bay and Port Talbot! It stars mostly English actors, though, so it might not be total crap. It looks very Game of Thrones, with very some very HD CG views of Florence and that actress who played Irene Adler in the recent BBC Sherlock. Bearing all of this in mind - how's a chap to please his Veniceophile fans when all there is on the horizon for them is the new Brunetti?
 

more news here
 

May 2013
David Adams Cleveland Love's attraction Venice
April 2013
Da Vinci's Demons Florence TV
 Jon Courtenay Grimwood The Exiled Blade Venice
Donna Leon The Golden Egg Venice
March 2013
Christobel Kent A Darkness Descending Florence
Suffer the Little Children, The Girl of his Dreams
and About Face Brunetti TV series
February 2013
Avenger of Venice Venice films
Magdalen Nabb Death of an Englishman Florence
The Lost Moment Venice films
Rupert Thomson Secrecy Florence
Who was Edgar Allen?  Venice films
The Venetian Affair Venice films
Infanzia, vocazione e prime esperienze di Giacomo Casanova, veneziano Venice films
January 2013
The Protectors Venice TV
Dennis Wheatley The Rape of Venice Venice
The Thief of Venice Venice films
E. Temple Thurston The City of Beautiful Nonsense Venice
 Helen Humphreys The Frozen Thames London
Philip Davies London - Hidden Interiors London
Alessandro Barbaro The Eyes of Venice Venice

December 2012
Alana White The Sign of the Weeping Virgin Florence
November 2012
Christobel Kent A Fine and Private Place Florence
October 2012
Nancy Huston Infrared Florence
Terry Pratchett Dodger London
Donna Leon The Jewels of Paradise Venice
September 2012
Lucretia Grindle Villa Triste Florence
Simon Barnes Venetia Venice
August 2012
Linda Proud A Gift for the Magus Florence
Ben Aaronovitch Whispers Under Ground London
July 2012
Marco Vichi Death in Sardinia Florence
June 2012
Maxim Jakubowski, ed. Venice Noir Venice
Tonya Macalino Faces in the Water Venice
Paul Strathern The Spirit of Venice Venice
Giacomo C.  Venice comics
The lost historic centre Florence
May 2012
Sarah Bruce Kelly Vivaldi's Muse Venice
Michael Dibdin A Rich Full Death Florence
Donna Leon Beastly Things Venice
Christobel Kent The Dead Season Florence