This stunningly original, kaleidoscopic novel is an inspired celebration of women reading and the artists who have caught them in the act--"a vivid portrait of a timeless subject" (Minneapolis Star Tribune). A young orphan poses for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena. A servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. An eighteenth-century female painter completes a portrait of a deceased poetess for her lover. A Victorian medium poses with a book in one of the first photographic studios....
This stunningly original, kaleidoscopic novel is an inspired celebration of women reading and the artists who have caught them in the act--"a vivid...
