Painted Ladies

by Lynn Bushell

Paris 1917. For twenty-five years, the legendary Marthe has been Pierre Bonnard’s companion and muse. His new model Renée, lovely and captivating, thinks it’s time her rival stepped aside. But Marthe won’t give up her place in history without a fight. An artist may have many models but there can be only one muse.

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2019

About the author

I began writing in order to support my work as a painter. My first three books were novels, the last two historical fiction about artists and their muses. The latest - "The Lovers and the Dustman" - the story of Stanley Spencer's obsession with his muse, gay vamp Patricia Preece - was published this week on Amazon.co.uk
https://amzn.to/3KsinZL

Reviews

[Bethan · Rating 5 out of 5]

: || “She won't come back to life then, even at the end?”

He smiles. “It’s not a fairy story, Renée. People don't come back to life”

“But stories aren't true.”

“No they aren't. But they reflect life. That's why they affect us in the way they do.

“You don't think that could really happen?”

Renée knows it can. It happens several times a year at Belleville.

“It's not so much the event itself; it's the emotions that lead up to it - love, passion, anger, jealousy. Those things exist in all of us and Dickens shows us what the consequences are when we don't keep a reign on them”

She's sitting at his feet and gazing up at him, her arms wrapped around his legs. Her chin is resting on his knee.

“I wish you hadn't read that bit” || :


Pierre is an artist who is on a mission to find a new inspiration for a series of paintings he is planning on showing at an up and coming show. It is by chance that he sees her on the other side of the road. 

It happened just like Marthe. 


But Renée is everything Marthe is not and although he knows what will entail when he offers her his card across the perfume counter where she works, he tempts fate anyway. Already seeing the colours before his eyes, he sets the wheels in motion for the catastrophic finale of a lovely story like no other. 

She is what he has been waiting for but he knows it will be the death of him.


Pierre Bonnard’s voice comes through so strongly in this book. I could see him, and feel his actions. It was devastatingly empowering. I could not put it down. Before now I had never heard of Bonnard or Marthe. But it's Renée who my heart fell and felt for. Love really is tragic in so many ways. 

Three hearts ruined all in the name of love, defined with, by and of colours.


Beautiful writing. The way it was presented. It was so new but I read the whole book in a few hours feverishly. 

[S.E. Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited the Bonnard exhibition in London earlier this year and was consequently keen to read a novel based on his life and that of his models.
This is a well written and interesting book about his second muse and I did enjoy it. I would have given it five stars except I felt the author misrepresented and glamorised his young mistress at the expense of vilifying his first muse, who after many years, became his wife. He didn't treat any of the women in his life well it has to be said.

[Lene Frandsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Beautifully written. I enjoyed every minute of this wonderful story about Pierre Bonnard and the women he painted. And the fact that it was really their story. Tragic, poetic, a story that lingers.

[Kevin Hicks · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very well written book looking at the life of an artist and the women he loves. Not my type of book, but an interesting read.

[Jill's Book Cafe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can heartily recommend this having devoured it on my recent holiday. I loved the evocation of Belle Epoque Paris and the social mores that defined the period. But it’s the fictionalised lives of Bonnard’s muses that sit at the heart of this captivating read. Its hard to feel anything but sympathy for both Marthe and Renée as they sacrificed reputations, families and more for the love of Pierre Bonnard.