First published 2018
Paulien Mertens arrives in Paris during the summer of 1922 with nothing. The nineteen-year-old Belgian woman has lost everything after her fiancé George Everard pulled off a massive fraud that left investors ruined and her reputation destroyed. Her own family believes she masterminded the con. To survive, she reinvents herself as Vivienne Gregsby, a French woman determined to reclaim her father's stolen art collection and prove her innocence. American collector Edwin Bradley hires Vivienne to help build his Philadelphia museum. She moves between the worlds of Parisian expatriates and American wealth, encountering figures like Gertrude Stein and beginning a romance with Henri Matisse. Her carefully constructed new life unravels when George reappears with mysterious intentions. Then Bradley turns up dead, and the police arrest Vivienne for murder. She must navigate accusations of theft, fraud, and now murder while fighting to clear her name and expose the truth about George's schemes.
Genres: art, romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, reinvention, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Paris, Philadelphia
Period: 1922
343 pages · Hardcover · Algonquin Books