The Very Picture of You

August 29, 2011
Gabriella “Ella” Graham is a portrait artist in her mid-30s, living in present-day London, whose dedication to her artwork precludes her developing personal relationships, in this latest from Brit author Wolff (A Vintage Affair). Ella refuses to paint from photographs and instead requires her subjects to spend long hours sitting for portraits, so intent is she on revealing their true natures. She’s also keenly aware that “I’m drawn to people who are a little bit dark—who haven’t had happy-ever-after sorts of lives. I like painting people who I sense are... complex.” As Ella learns more about the people she paints, she allows herself to reflect on secrets that have haunted her family since she was a child. She remembers sketching her father’s face when she was a little girl in order to preserve his features, but despite repeated inquiries, Ella’s mother refuses to provide her daughter with much detail about the past. The powerful combination of Ella’s professional success along with her sister Chloe’s upcoming wedding causes Ella to turn her focus inward and face startling revelations about herself. Wolff’s heroine is an excellent conduit to understanding how art can reflect the true essence of those being depicted, while the story delivers all the charm and romance readers have come to expect.

September 1, 2011

A portrait painter becomes enmeshed in her subjects' secrets and lies.

Ella, who at 35 has secured her niche as London portraitist to the wealthy and titled, has a knack for exposing the cloaked emotions of the people she paints. As the novel begins, she's just received an e-mail from her once-revered father, John, who left Ella and her ballerina mother, Sue, 30 years ago for another woman. She's debating whether to see John when her half-sister Chloe, finally recovering from an affair with a married man, wins a portrait from Ella at a charity auction. Ella is thus assigned to paint Chloe's charismatic fiancé, Nate, an American employed by a London private-equity firm. At first Ella despises Nate—based on an overheard cell-phone call, she assumes he's two-timing Chloe—but as he sits for her, she finds herself, to her dismay, falling for him brushstroke by brushstroke. As she helps Sue plan the myriad details of Chloe's upcoming wedding extravaganza, her mother confesses that not only was John unfaithful, he had a child with the other woman. As she ponders this revelation of a sister she never knew she had, Ella is beset by other dilemmas. One of her subjects, a Frenchwoman, is not only cynical about the 40th birthday gala her much older husband is planning for her, but squeamish about being captured on canvas—could it be because she is having an affair? Another, an M.P. up for re-election, may have been the hit-and-run driver who killed Grace, a bicyclist whom Ella has been commissioned to memorialize in a posthumous painting from photographs. Wolff builds tension by skillfully balancing multiple plotlines of betrayal, deception and remorse. Although Ella's close scrutiny of her subjects elucidates their characters, her own personality, thanks perhaps to her role as voyeur, remains opaque—not a winning trait in a protagonist.

Any hope of profundity is further undermined by a maudlin ending worthy of a Hugh Grant movie.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 1, 2011

Gabriella Graham is a London portraitist who, at 35, is collecting a growing number of accolades and commissions. Her half-sister, Chloe, is engaged to Nate, and Chloe wants Ella to paint Nate's portrait. Unfortunately, Ella loathes Nate after overhearing his seemingly affectionate phone conversation with another woman. During the sittings, though, Ella begins to develop inappropriate feelings toward her future brother-in-law. At the same time, Ella receives an email from her father, now living in Australia, who abandoned her and her mother more than 30 years ago. As her mother has always refused to discuss him, Ella is torn about how to respond. Suddenly, her comfortable, predictable life seems rooted in a bed of lies. VERDICT Wolff (A Vintage Affair) draws us into the world of portrait painting, with readers imagining how they might pose, what they would wear, and what of their true natures would be captured by the perceptive artist. As Ella reveals her sitters' essence and vitality, she finds herself struggling with misplaced emotions and a sense of betrayal. This cathartic and ultimately romantic tale will appeal to fans of women's fiction. [Library marketing; see Prepub Alert, 4/4/11.]--Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.