The Muse

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Olive is a gifted painter but her pompous father believes women can never be artists. Thus begins the Spanish section of the book set in the turbulent Spanish civil war. It’s beautifully crafted – I loved it, and so will you.

The civil war parts were boring, and it felt like a dull history lesson that you could nap your way through. I believe the author could've done a better job to make it more interesting and fit for a novel. Spain, 1937. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and her 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. 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.” 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?” 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.

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My, how beautiful is Jessie Burton's writing? Almost exactly a year ago (June 3rd 2015 actually) I was almost done with The Miniaturist. I loved it. I loved the writing, I loved the historical setting, I loved the story and every single thing about it. When I heard about The Muse I was extremely curious and being approved for an arc made me squeal with joy. Now, The Muse isn't as beautiful as The Miniaturist was imo, but it was indeed lovely and sad and everything inbetween. That’s one thing this book has in common with The Miniaturist. And it’s a reason enough to read both! Rhodes, Emily (5 October 2019). "Jessie Burton's The Confession is, frankly, a bit heavy-handed". The Spectator . Retrieved 3 January 2020.

Burton constructs the dual plotline with painstaking craft, and has a good ear for the ambient interruptions of nature: “the cicadas began to build their rasping wall of sound”; “Bees drowsing on the fat flower heads, farmers’ voices calling, birdsong arpeggios spritzing from the trees”.

The Muse

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy. all these quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof of the book, so they might be subject to change. She had never had a friend like this, in her private room, combing her hair, listening to her, talking about silly nonsense and the uselessness of one's parents; how the future was perfect, because they hadn't lived it yet.” Jessie Burton is the author of four novels, The Miniaturist , The Muse , The Confession , and The House of Fortune. Burton studied at Lady Margaret School, [4] Brasenose College, Oxford, and the Central School of Speech and Drama. [5]

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 It started slowly and never speeded up; there were lots of words but very little action. And this in itself wouldn’t have been so bad if the words themselves drew me into a story I felt compelled to listen to. They didn’t and I wasn’t.This was the most astoundingly wonderful read that I was not anticipating and didn't know I needed!

It's funny how Jessie Burton is able to write stories that are quite similar, but that are still able to evoke very opposing emotions in me. Some years ago, I read "The Miniaturist" and I wasn't impressed. I still appreciated the story, though, and so I decided to get "The Muse" as well and read it. I'm so happy I did! It turned out that I liked this novel a lot better, and in many ways I read it at just the perfect time of my life.

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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.