Many thanks to author Jessie Burton via publisher Pan Macmillan for a copy of The Muse in exchange for my honest review. Fleming, Mike Jr. (October 18, 2016). "Paramount & Appian Way Landing 'Truevine' As Potential Leonardo DiCaprio-Starrer". Deadline . Retrieved December 5, 2016. In 1936 Spain, in the impoverished rural village of Arazuelo on the southern coast of Spain, Olive Schloss, a nineteen year old artist, lives in a rented villa with her expatriate parents. Her father is a Viennese art dealer who doesn’t believe women can be true artists, and is totally unaware of his daughter’s talent. Olive hides her artwork, along with her invitation to study art at a London art school. Either from uncertainty or a feeling that her artistic future lies elsewhere, Olive never responds to the art school. Her decision to stay is solidified when she meets Isaac Robles, an art teacher and revolutionary, and his young sister Teresa. Olive befriends Teresa and falls in love with Isaac, who inspires her to paint greater art than Olive has ever created before. Isaac’s minor talent at painting, Teresa’s desire to have Olive become known for her art, and Olive’s compulsion to keep it secret, collide, with unexpected consequences for all three of them. It's a good book to put someone suffering insomnia to sleep. I yawned a lot and paused a lot and read a lot of another book in between. I mostly exaggerate when I'm disappointed but I'll give credit where credit is due. It's not the worst book out there and it can appeal to someone with a different taste. I liked the beginning and parts near the unsatisfactory end. But the middle content was a meh. Meanwhile in 1936, Spain is on the verge of war and revolution and Olive Schloss; daughter of Harold and Sarah, and aspiring artist is entranced by the mysterious and enigmatic brother and sister; Isaac and Teresa Robles.

I immensely enjoyed reading Odelle's story. Her voice, her thoughts, everything fit. She's curious, she has a lively mind and she knows that, considering that she's an immigrant and a woman she has to work harder than most people to achieve her goal: becoming a published writer. Odelle is the kind of girl I want to see in books: smart, curious, strong in a quiet but unmistakable way. Her side of the story was lovely and touching.okay, i suppose i should write a more in-depth review of the actual book and not just rely on super-sexxy hospital gown photos to do all the work for me…

Spain, 1937. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art deale There’s little else I can say about the plot of this book without giving something important away. While many of the twists were foreshadowed, there were a couple that came as a surprise to me. I confess that this is a story that would have benefited from a bit more characterization and a little less plodding prose. While the writing was lovely, it tended toward boggy. I liked what the novel had to say about art and the process of creation, and I appreciated that the book highlighted women as artists. But none of the relationships felt true, and the characters didn’t seem to like or accept themselves, which made them hard to enjoy. All of that boils down to this: I enjoyed the philosophical aspects of the story far more than the story itself. That being said, the book has merit, especially for people who appreciate the theory of art or are artists themselves.Like most artists, everything I produced was connected to who I was - and so I suffered according to how my work was received. The idea that anyone might be able to detach their personal value from their public output was revolutionary.” A captivating and brilliantly realized story of two young women - a Caribbean immigrant in 1960s London, and a bohemian woman in 1930s Spain - and the powerful mystery that ties them together. The test of making language sound true to period is one even the best writers flunk at some point; anachronism is the sleeping monster of the historical novel. The Muse is strong on the emotional and sensual, less so on the figurative depiction of interior states (“I had to hold in the tsunami of sound I wanted to unleash”). It is a severely competent novel. The craftsmanship is solid, the sincerity of feeling is sustained to the end; none of it is exceptional. Yet who would bet against it selling a million copies like its predecessor?