The Muse is a story of love, art and loss ... not necessarily in that order. The action starts in London, 1967, where Odelle Bastien, a budding writer from the Caribbean is working in a dead end job just to make ends meet. When she starts a new job at the Skelton Institute of Art, her life is completely transformed by her enigmatic colleague, Marjorie Quick, and the discovery of a previously unknown painting by Isaac Robles, a mysterious Spanish artist about whom people know very little. Odelle and the owner of the painting become romantically entangled and, it seems, life is on the up, but why does Quick seem to trust Odelle one minute and push her away the next?.
Meanwhile, the story takes us back in time to a small village in Southern Spain in 1936, where an Anglo-Austrian family have recently settled despite the threat of Civil War. Olive Schloss, the daughter of an Austrian Art dealer and an English heiress, is a budding artist, who has turned down her offer from Slade Art School to come to Spain with her parents. Half-siblings, Terese and Isaac Robles, make themselves invaluable to the Schloss family, with Olive falling for Isaac, budding artist and fervent revolutionary, in a big way. She feels he is the inspiration for her finest work which has started to pour out of her. When Mr Schloss asks to see some of Isaac's work, with a view to selling it, Terese switches his work with one of Olive's in an effort to get her work recognised. However, Olive wants Isaac to take the credit. This initial small deception leads to heartache that is felt for many decades to come.
Jessie Burton has created two totally believable narratives that are beautifully intertwined over the course of the book. I loved the character of Odelle who is funny and insecure, but brave and determined too. The scenes in Spain were stifling, unsettling and completely engrossing. The descriptions of the artwork were so detailed that I felt like I had an actual image of them in my mind's eye. This is a clever book that is hard to categorise ... there is love to be had, a mystery to solve and a journey of self-discovery. It's great to have a book where women take centre stage and I was hooked from the get-go and I really thought I knew where it was headed ... but I was wrong-footed, which doesn't happen very often, so when it does, I am a happy girl!
I read the audio edition. narrated with style by Cathy Tyson.
My STAR rating: 5 STARS.
Length: 416 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.99.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook.
No comments:
Post a Comment