In our conversation, Caroline explains what drew her to Johanna, what new insights she learned into Vincent, the photograph that inspired it all, and so much more. Her perseverance paid off in ways that no-one could have imagined, and Vincent’s work was finally given the spotlight that it deserved. With how many wonderful books I’ve been dying to read currently stacked around my room I don’t see the point in trying to force myself to finish this when all it’s given me so far is a reading slump and a headache. While I would have liked Mrs Van Gogh to focus more on Johanna's challenges in bringing Vincent's art to public notice, as I was led to believe it would do by the synopsis, I did enjoy the story that was actually told here instead.

Johanna was only married to Theo for a short two and a half years - mind blowing in the big scheme of things. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). The authors writing style was excellent, the story easy to follow and I thought the book flowed seamlessly. For in the routine of daily life there is so little time to reflect, and sometimes days go by when I don’t actually live, but let life happen to me, and that’s terrible.HERstory: Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger: a creative and critical exploration of the role a woman played in Vincent van Gogh's rise to fame. Because despite this what Carline does is give Johanna a voice and her fictional account is entertaining and believable. She also stayed in touch with Émile Bernard, who helped her to promote Vincent van Gogh's paintings. Vincent Van Gogh is one of my biggest inspirations, and his story is one that fascinates me, but not a lot of people know how important his sister in law was to his story and success.

I’d heard about women like Camille Claudel and Berthe Morisot, but I really didn’t know much about them. Until Jo and Theo marry at sixty percent of the way into the book, the story is fictionalized and unfolds as a historical romance starting with Jo arriving in Paris under a cloud of shame, hoping to be an artist. It does probably divert so far from historical truth as to irritate knowledgeable Van Gogh fans, but as historical fiction I found it to be an entertaining read. She likes the idea of what Montmartre artistic area offers – to be bohemian and flamboyant, without any rush to marry. This is fiction, of course, but it strayed too far from Johanna's story to make me question whether the rest of the novel would similarly be a problem.Eleven years later, his work was being exhibited around the world and his reputation as a great artist was established. This book offered a fictional glimpse into the life of Theo’s wife- her past, present and the future she sets in motion. From an artist's perspective this was a time when the stifled studio paintings heavy in noxious fumes from oils and paints and stilted artworks to one where the "en plein air" and impressionism had begun to emerge. Caroline Cauchi has a great way of telling the story and it left me wanting more from Caroline Cauchi.

When Jo, as she is known, visits her brother in Paris for the summer, she experiences something new. Men, the powerbrokers and gatekeepers, scoffed at the idea that a woman could be a professional of any kind. Mrs Van Gogh is a beautifully written historical fiction novel which allowed me to really feel as though I were immersed in Montmartre life in the 1880s and 1890s. Jo's son Vincent Willem conveyed to Lise's children his mother's regret about the end of the women's friendship. For Johanna, the chance to spend time in Paris, amongst the up and coming artists, and especially the female artists was a wonderful opportunity that she grasped with both hands.Instead, Cauchi has recreated, in gorgeous detail, the years that she imagines Johanna spending getting to know and then married to Vincent's brother, Theo. Though we have all heard of the ingenious and disturbed Vincent Van Gogh, how much do we really know of Johanna Bonger who married Vincent's brother, Theo?