all these quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof of the book, so they might be subject to change.

As it turned out it just took way too long to flesh out details and as the story progresses and connections are made between the two characters and times, it felt a bit like a soap opera. 3 stars which for me means that I liked it but didn't find it to be one that will be memorable. Burton engages in a fair bit of parallelism. Odelle is an immigrant to London. Olive is a foreigner in Spain. Both are creatives, Odelle with writing, Olive with painting. Both Olive and Odelle hide their work from most people. Both find inspiration in a love interest, and feel unable to create in the absence of that other. Both have their work exposed to the world without their consent. Both Odelle and Olive imagine paradise in a place that is anything but. Olive sees Spain as Eden-ic and uses that in one very lush painting. But she does not see the turmoil that underlies the country until it is almost upon her. Odelle sees London as a sort of literary nirvana, but has had to endure years of racism and limited opportunity. She does, however, experience a Shangri-La moment in the lush growth of a London garden. Other items to keep an eye out for are characters projecting their expectations, good and bad, onto others. There are several parent/child, mentor/acolyte connections at play. Seeing people or things in terms of fairy tales, religious and secular, pops up a few times as well. Overall I really enjoyed the atmosphere, both the settings and I found the characters to be well written and engaging.This was the most astoundingly wonderful read that I was not anticipating and didn't know I needed! The Confession also follows The Muse in establishing a dual time-frame. Episodes set in the present day illustrate Constance’s increasing dependency on Laura as she struggles to break her silence with a new book. These passages are interleaved with scenes from the early 1980s when Constance was at the height of her fame, the author of two influential novels and a much-cited essay on female empowerment. Throughout this halcyon period of large advances and Hollywood film offers, Constance’s closest companion was her lover Elise Morceau; a young, waif-like woman she met while walking on Hampstead Heath in north London. Tidily if dully concluded, this second novel fails to hit the same sweet, wholly integrated spot as its predecessor, but Burton fans will be happy to reunite with her committed storytelling.

The plot follows two different but interwined timelines. We have Odelle, a Caribbean immigrant in London in 1967, and Olive Schloss, daughter of an art dealer in Spain in 1937.

Whether it takes the form of music or a painting or a sculpture or the written word, nothing speaks to our souls like art. This gives artists a power over their fellow men and women. But no one doubts art so much as its creator, and so an artist’s audience holds within themselves the approval and praise that said artist craves, and thus artists rely on their audiences for the affirmation and reassurance needed to create their next work of art. However, if an artist isn’t careful they begin producing cheap imitations of the art that first garnered them attention, and so artists must be careful regarding how heavily they rely upon and value the opinions of others. They need something else to feed that need and fuel their creativity.

I thought London would mean prosperity and welcome. A Renaissance place. Glory and success. I thought leaving for England was the same as stepping out of my house and onto the street, just a slightly colder street where a beti with a brain could live next door to Elizabeth the Queen." So why didn’t the whole add up to the sum of it’s parts? Well, I can’t tell you about the whole, but I can tell you about the half of it. Raised in poverty, these illegitimate children of the local landowner revel in exploiting this wealthy Anglo-Austrian family. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss’s lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come.Film rights for the book are currently being negotiated by Paramount Pictures and Appian Way Productions. [1] Synopsis [ edit ] Spain, 1936. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and an English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and Teresa's half-brother, Isaac Robles, an idealistic and ambitious painter newly returned from the Barcelona salons. A dilettante buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war, Isaac dreams of being a painter as famous as his countryman Picasso. So many novelists over these last few years, it seems are telling stories from dual time frames and if done right there can be a meaningful connection between them . I thought the story had so much promise at first. It touched on some topics that would make for interesting discussion - the view of women artists in the 1930's , who and why does the artist, painter or writer, create for - themselves, for outside praise and recognition? We glimpse civil war in Spain and it also touches on racial issues in the 1960's in England. So there is much in the way of food for thought. On top of that there is a mystery over a painting, love interests, and the hold on the reader waiting to see how Olive's life in a town in Spain in 1936 would connect with Odelle's in London in 1967 . I really enjoyed Jessie Burton's first novel, The Miniaturist, but I absolutely adored The Muse. It is a gripping, evocative and beautiful book, with characters who come alive and a plot that is unpredictable and surprising and wonderfully crafted. Absolutely wonderful, a book that I will be recommending to everyone I meet So, so true, and that’s something many artists struggle with. If someone doesn’t like your work, it doesn’t mean they think you’re a terrible person, but at times this is difficult to believe.

Elise is the novel’s most enigmatic character: a neurotic drifter who both feeds off and resents Constance’s growing celebrity. She becomes increasingly depressed and detached when Constance moves to the US to pursue her ambitions of becoming a player in the movie industry. Then Elise simply disappears, absconding from a filthy Brooklyn apartment leaving a newborn baby behind. The only certain fact is that, immediately prior to her disappearance, Elise received a final visit from Constance. Burton is a writer fully in control of her craft, as she employs the fundamental co-ordinates of a fairytale 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…Was the difference between being a workaday painter and being an artist simply other people believing in you, or spending twice as much money on your work? As far as Olive saw it, this connection of masculinity with creativity had been conjured from the air and been enforced, legitimised and monetised by enough people for whom such a state of affairs was convenient – men like her father.” Raised in poverty, these illegitimate children of the local landowner revel in exploiting the wealthy Anglo-Austrians. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss family's lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come.