The Doll Factory

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeal  336 pages 

"London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.

When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.

But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening . . . "  (summary courtesy of Goodreads)

I found it was easier to use Goodreads than try to come up with a summary that didn't give away too much about the story. This book is a great combination of suspense and real-life details, with unforgettable characters. The author has a rich, evocative writing style and London really comes to life here. If you have familiarity with this time period, as well as some of the well-known artists of that time, this book is a real treat. I found this was a page-turner that stayed with me for a long time after I finished it.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith   290 pages

Manhattan, 1957: Marty de Groot and his wife, Rachel, host a benefit while a treasured painting is removed from their bedroom and replaced by a meticulous forgery. Until that night, the original had been in the de Groot family for 300 years.

Amsterdam, 1637: Sara de Vos waits to see the chief overseer of the St. Luke’s guild of master painters to ask that he reinstate her to its ranks. The first woman ever admitted into the guild, she has been “suspended” for selling paintings outside the group’s purview.

Sydney, 2000: Eleanor Shipley, an internationally renowned art historian, nervously awaits the arrival of two apparently identical paintings for a show devoted to works by female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. One is the original Sara de Vos painting, “At the Edge of a Wood,” stolen from de Groot; the other is the forgery, painted by Shipley herself nearly 50 years earlier. 

In addition to the story’s firm historical grounding, the narratives of all three characters glide easily among the centuries without a snag. Smith’s 1637 is as convincing as his 1957or 2000, his Amsterdam in its Golden Age is no less vivid than millennial Manhattan. The novel’s themes and images reflect forward and backward in time, its plot sprinkled with uncanny details about the characters and circumstances surrounding the Dutch Doppelgängers.

Posted By:   Regina C.