Death of a Sculptor in Hue, Shape and Color

by M.C.V. Egan

Color coded love stories and revealing female anatomies lead to the murder of world renowned sculptor, Bruce Jones.
In life, the artist loved women, almost as much as women loved him. Adored for his art and colorful personality, Bruce is mourned by the world at large. The tale is launched with the multifaceted perspectives of four ex-wives, the current wife, and his new love interest and their children.
Mary , Bruce’s wealthy first love, is always in perfect pink; the color of love. Mother of Clair the famous actress and Aaron the corporate lawyer.
Leslie The Second’s color is yellow for her sunny nature as much as for her fears and insecurities. Her only son Bobby is vulnerable and lost. Mourning his father’s death, he finds himself.
Petra The Third, is outstanding in orange, representing not only her native Holland but also her love of the fruit. Cherished her freedom and had no children of her own.
Toni The Fourth is a vibrant passionate Italian red and part of the eventual glue that creates and solidifies this dysfunctional Jones family. Her teenage daughters Tina and Isa are as different as night and day.
Brooke The Fifth a gold-digger. Green, her color, reflects the color of money and envy. Her young son’s Kyle and Caleb are too young to understand why their world has been turned upside-down.
Mara, as blue as the ocean was the last woman to steal Bruce’s heart. Mother to newborn Baby Peter is the unexpected gift and surprise.
Bruce Jones’ eight children speak out, too. They are as distinctive as the women he loved, their mothers.
Loose ends are tied up by the insights of Sylvia, Aaron’s wife and a trusted keeper of secrets; Scott, the private investigator and family friend; Nona, the quintessential grandmother everyone loves but to whom few are truly related; and Detective Jim Miller who will not rest until he discovers Bruce Jones’ murderer.

Genres: Mystery, Contemporary

149 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 9, 2017

About the author

M.C.V. Egan is fluent in four languages, Spanish, English, French and Swedish. She lives in Delray Beach, Florida with her husband and son.

Reviews

[Kristine Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite Death of a Sculptor in Hue, Shape, and Color chiming in at less than seventy-five pages, after finishing it, I truly felt like I had experienced a full length novel. Readers enjoy narration from sixteen (yes! 16!) different characters and get their sixteen different perspectives of the life and death of Bruce Jones. Amazingly, author M.C.V. Egan makes this work.

"I could tell by the sculptures he had loved her seven years." -- Mary, the First

Bruce Jones was larger than life, and his art revealed his heart. Through the lenses of his ex-wives, lover, children, and a few others, readers see how Bruce's death mends broken hearts and bridges together all of Bruce's loves. As each person narrates, a new layer of Bruce's life is revealed. Careful readers will pick up hints of what is coming as the book takes a few surprising turns.

Color plays an extremely important part in the story as each of the women Bruce has loved is associated with a color in life and art. The colors help define these women as much as their own narrations and descriptions by others do as well. It is a very interesting and unique device, which ties in nicely with Bruce's being an artist. And as a side note, the cover is gorgeous and the image and colors tie-in specifically to someone in the story.

The copy I reviewed wasn't final, so I will assume all the errors I saw are corrected in the final version. I hope so, because the author has a great writing style and does well with giving unique voices to each of the sixteen narrators. She also uses figurative language to really enhance her descriptions. For example, Egan writes that Bruce's funeral was "like a forged work of art" that was beautiful but lacking something.

Believe it or not, there was still one more narrator that I would have liked to have heard from, but to reveal that person would be a bit of a spoiler. There was just a little more information I needed to make the surprise twist make more sense. With that exception, the story winds up with a tidy ending and uplifting message that love conquers all, even when it's found in a most unconventional way.

Thank you to the author and Magic of Books promotions for providing me an eBook copy in exchange for my honest opinion -- the only kind I give. Full review and excerpt on my blog http://kristinehallways.blogspot.com/...

[Jenny Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my full review at http://blackwords-whitepages1977.blog...

I absolutely loved how the author wrote this story. This author has always had a unique style of writing and can reel in and capture her audience with her words on paper and this story is no different. This story was so much fun to read!! It was a magnificent mystery full of surprises, and a few giggles, that I didn't see coming, with a remarkable twist to it at the end. The characters were incredible and the story-line was just fantastic. I loved how we got to know the thoughts and feelings of each individual character that played a roll in Bruce's life. I also loved how each ex-wife was a different color in the sculptor's mind and how the death of Bruce brought the whole family together in the end. This was a great work of art and I can say that I believe that this author is a complete genius!! I highly recommend this story to all adults to enjoy!!

[Fran Bernitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific, quick read with a host of interesting characters and points-of-view. Particularly enjoyed reading this in Delray Beach.....This certainly makes you think about the colorful sources of inspiration for beautiful sculptures! Thank you for a great read, Catalina Egan!

[Nancy (The Avid Reader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich and famous artist known all over the world for his sculptures, Bruce Jones has died at the age of 62. Bruce was loved by many. He was loved by his 5th and current wife as well as his four exes’ and a mistress plus his seven children.

Bruce gave each of his wives a different color of his choosing for his own personal reasons. Bruce loved and cared for each of his wives very deeply and differently. He liked to sculpture each of them in the color he gave them.

We find out who and what kind of person Bruce was through the pov of each of his wives and his seven children as well. We find out more about Bruce through the eyes of a private investigator and a Detective, plus a few more people too. We also hear what all the “wives” think about each other and their stepchildren.

I love watching tv shows on the ID channel among others. But two of my favorites are James Patterson’s MURDER IS FOREVER and Betrayed. When I was reading Death of a Sculptor I kept thinking of these two shows. I know that Death of a Sculptor is fiction but I think it would fit right in with Murder is Forever with each of the wives and children playing their part. I love how Murder is Forever portrayed; like a movie or tv show instead of a documentary. I can just hear Bruce on Betrayed narrow rating his own death.

I did relate to a couple of the wives in some ways as I am the fourth wife and I have never had children of my own. We are one big family with wife number two and the mother of my two wonderful stepsons and her family.

Death of a Sculptor is a very short read with just enough info that will leave you wanting more because the story is so great that you just need to know more about their stories and lives. But in the end, it does leave you with that satisfied feeling that Bruce’s story is complete with no loose ends.

I would recommend Death of a Sculptor to anyone looking for a great read that can be read in one sitting, a story that is filled with lots of love for one man and his family and a little murder on the side.

[Toi Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a bizarrely functional dysfunctional family this is now that Bruce is gone. The story starts with his death and the gathering of his many ex-wives and children, but of course, there’s more to it. There is the question of how Bruce really died; the question of how the estranged family will cope, and the question of who is the woman with the blue hair?

I gotta say, anyone who saw this story coming is a genius. The way all the drama wrapped up at the end is still whirling in my head. I know death has been known to bring families together, but if I say any more, I’ll be spoiling it… and I definitely don’t want to do that. This story is so worth the read.

Even though this is a short read, it didn’t feel short, which is always a plus. Because the whole situation plays out like a TV crime drama, I’m still having trouble accepting some things, but that’s what makes it such a good story. I think the small handful of issues I had would probably be turn-ons to someone else. I think the movie star daughter was my favorite of the family and I kinda felt bad that the cop had a crush on her, but I was glad she got her HEA… that’s the only semi-spoiler I’m giving.

I will say, that whatever I feel about the story and or characters, I enjoyed the experience of reading this book. I’d recommend it to fans of mystery and crime dramas, and to fans of family dramas. Not suitable for pre-teens and small children.

[Michael Thal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruce Jones was a world-renowned sculptor and art teacher who died unexpectedly. The womanizer had eight children with his five wives and was working on wife number six when he was murdered. We get to know each one of his wives as they tell their story in a chapter relegated to them. In those chapters we get their personal take on the sculptor they loved and the man’s place in their lives.

Mary was Bruce’s first wife and mother of Clair and Aaron. Clair grew up to become a famous actress and Aaron a corporate lawyer. Through Mary we learn that each wife had her own color in the sculptor’s mind. And she is the color of love—pink.

Wife two, Leslie, came into Bruce’s life seven years into his marriage to Mary. Bruce colored her yellow for her sunny nature. Petra, the third wife was colored orange. She works in an art gallery and is Bruce’s only wife that didn’t have children.

Number four, Tina, is depicted by the sculptor in his drawings as red for her Italian passion. She had two daughters with the sculptor. His fifth wife, Brooke, is the color of envy and money. She is perceived as a gold digger and murderess for she, the current wife, has everything to gain from Bruce’s death for he was working on wife number six prior to his death.

MCV Egan begins the novel at Bruce’s garish funeral using hue, shape, and color as she describes a large cast of characters giving each a voice throughout the novel. I’ve read many books with huge casts of personalities, and the reading becomes difficult and confusing. I can’t say that about Death of a Sculptor in Hue, Shape and Color. The author gives each character the opportunity to voice their perspective about Bruce Jones, which provides the reader with various insights into the sculptor’s personality and habits.

Personally, I hate men who leave their wife for another woman. They are shallow and lack the character to maintain a substantive relationship with anyone. However, Bruce’s x-wives seem to accept their fate and happy they had seven years with the love of their life.

Through the voices of his wives and children we learn about Detective Jim Miller, the police officer assigned to Bruce’s murder. Only in the last few chapters do we find out who the murderer really is.

Death of a Sculptor in Hue, Shape and Color is more of a character study than a mystery. Readers are taken into the lives of each one of Bruce’s wives and his children as we learn about the artist and the fascinating life he lived.

[Elaine Graham-Leigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bruce Jones, the sculptor of the title, was a much-married man. As his many ex-wives and children gather for his funeral, we learn something of what he was like in life and about the circumstances of his death.

Using multiple perspectives to tell the same story can be a great way of showing us characters and their relationships. Big, set-piece family events like funerals are ideal for this, bringing together as they do characters who may love or hate each other but who can plausibly have decades-worth of backstory to explore. I’m thinking for example of Alice Thomas Ellis’ The Summerhouse Trilogy for a masterclass in how to do this around a wedding. I therefore had high hopes for Death of a Sculptor, but unfortunately they weren’t realised.

I got the impression that Egan hadn’t entirely decided whether the story was mostly a character study or a murder mystery. What results is an uneasy combination of both, where the reader is catapulted suddenly from Bruce’s wives’ memories of him into a murder story which unfortunately ends up being neither mysterious nor very interesting.

Pursuing the murder storyline also meant that Egan had less space to explore Bruce’s character and that of his ex-wives in enough depth to keep this aspect of the novel interesting. None of the wives were given enough space for Egan to be able to develop genuinely individual voices for them. We’re told that Bruce had a physical ‘type’ when it came to his women and that seemed to have spilled over into their characters, as none of them came over as distinctive.

The other character rather missing characterisation, oddly enough, was Bruce himself, who was present but somehow not present throughout. Despite him being the central character, all I felt I ended up knowing about him was that he was an attentive lover, which wasn’t really sufficient. Again, more space for his wives’ different perspectives on him and their lives together would have allowed him to be more fully realised.

This is a short novel, but that isn’t always a virtue. There was more potential interest in here than the brief page count allowed to develop. A less perfunctory look at the different stages of Bruce’s life might have allowed the hue, shape and colour to come through.

I received a review copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

[Tracey Quintin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously, how is it that I thoroughly enjoyed this color coded story of the death of a loved one? I SURE DID! Not that I wanted a character to die, it was the crafting of this story by the author that was fantastic.
This is the first book I've read by this author and I feel that M.C.V. Egan did a remarkable job at telling a beautiful story of Bruce, the Sculptor, his loves which were his ex-wives, his current wife, his current love and his children.
WOW...I had never read a story before where each chapter was devoted to an individual character in the story. I was given unique insight into each character by the author doing this and the story flowed beautifully!
This was not a somber read at all. Actually, quite enlightening and even some chuckles. Although the total number of pages in this story are short, I didn't feel it was a short story at all.
This author wrote this story very artistically in a manner perfect so that even those not familiar with the "art world" could very easily envision and understand.
Well done M.C V. Egan, a highly recommended read by me!

[Judy Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Death of a Sculptor is a cleverly written mystery that draws the reader in from the first page. The fun begins when four of the five ex-wives of a famous sculptor are seated together in the same pew at his funeral. I enjoyed the way each chapter was written from a different character's point of view -- many of them suspects themselves. That the author manages to make each of the numerous characters unique and memorable is a tribute to her writing skill. You'll definitely enjoy this one!

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written! This book will have you drawn in from page 1. It keeps you... and it keeps you wandering. The plot the characters, oh the character... All well written.