I hope I don't run into another book like this too soon. There are things I need to get done - and since I started this book I have done very little besides read it. I liked The Historian, but this one kept me reading long past when I should have been grading papers or some such thing. Maybe it is the romance, maybe it is the mystery, maybe it was the immersion in the minds and work of painters.
Maybe it was the possibility of some sort of time/space thing. Given my lifetime of reading science fiction and fantasy, I kept expecting something like that. I had figured out the basics of the plot long before the end, but I kept looking for a Jack Finney conclusion. Kostova brings it to a totally satisfying and rational conclusion. In spite of my expectations I enjoyed it completely.
The two time tracks are beautifully woven together. The switches between the two are clean and logical. Discovery in each track leads to the events in the other.
Kostova uses a couple of devices here that are not my favorites but she does it very effectively. I'm not a big fan of the new narrator for every chapter thing. All that voicing is difficult to do effectively, and I think it disrupts the narrative line unnecessarily. Here, Kostova allows us to hear each of the women in Robert Oliver's life in her own voice: the wife, the mistress, and the obsession. And one of those is only accessible through a packet of letters - the epistolary form which also is not my favorite. She makes it work.
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