The Muse

LoveReading Says

Shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Fiction Award 2016.

A Maxim Jakubowski selected title.

In the footsteps of THE MINIATURIST, Jessie Burton's second novel confirms her as a wonderful storyteller with a vivid imagination and empathy for a broad range of disparate characters. No wonder that this novel is already high on the bestseller lists. Set in 1960s London, this tale of Odelle, a young woman from the Caribbean settling in London in a secretarial position at an art gallery with curious colleagues and hoping to become a writer unfolds like silk, smooth and fascinating in parallel to an eventually tragic tale set in Spain in the mid 1930s on the eve of the Spanish Civil War about the painting of a mysterious set of masterpieces.

Burton engineers the two plots and the way they embed with each other like a meticulous jeweller and the scope of the novel increases with every passing page and revelations occur to make the whole quite unforgettable and moving as it rushes to its conclusion all too fast. All human life is here. Savour slowly. ~ Maxim Jakubowski

Reviewed by Maxim Jakubowski
Maxim Jakubowski is a London-based novelist and editor.
More reviews by Maxim Jakubowski

About The Muse

A picture hides a thousand words ...On a hot July day in 1967, Odelle Bastien climbs the stone steps of the Skelton gallery in London, knowing that her life is about to change forever. Having struggled to find her place in the city since she arrived from Trinidad five years ago, she has been offered a job as a typist under the tutelage of the glamorous and enigmatic Marjorie Quick. But though Quick takes Odelle into her confidence, and unlocks a potential she didn't know she had, she remains a mystery - no more so than when a lost masterpiece with a secret history is delivered to the gallery.

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