Want to read the true story of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard's fight to take her rightful place in the competitive art world of eighteenth-century Paris?
Read on, friend, read on!
What about the whole blurb?
With a beautiful rival who’s better connected and better trained than she is, Adélaïde faces an uphill battle. Her love affair with her young instructor in oil painting gives rise to suspicions that he touches up her work, and her decision to make much-needed money by executing erotic pastels threatens to create as many problems as it solves. Meanwhile, her rival goes from strength to strength, becoming Marie Antoinette’s official portraitist and gaining entrance to the elite Académie Royale at the same time as Adélaïde.
When at last Adélaïde earns her own royal appointment and receives a massive commission from a member of the royal family, the timing couldn’t be worse: it’s 1789, and with the fall of the Bastille her world is turned upside down by political chaos and revolution. With danger around every corner in her beloved Paris, she must find a way to adjust to the new order, carving out a life and a career all over again—and stay alive in the process.
Published on August 30th, 2022 by She Writes Press
Now, thanks to Books Forward and Susanne Dunlap, I was offered a free e-copy of The Portraitist for a review (coming soon!) and the opportunity to shout out about this book depicting a true story of an artist woman (please see this very article).
But who's behind this great story and research?
Here's Susanne Dunlap:
Not only is she a wonderful author, she's quite savvy and passionate in her field. She published her first at 50 years old (amazing! dreams and talents are worth following!), and she's now an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach in fiction and nonfiction (impressive!). I particularly love how she first fell in love with historical fiction: I first by reading T.H. White’s The Once and Future King! I mean, already I was intrigued that Miss Dunlap had found and told a woman artist's tale mostly unknown to the general public, but now I gotta admit I feel a certain kinship with her. Arthurian legends, historical fiction, feminism, and all that good stuff? OMG, sign me up!
Want to know more about The Portraitist?
You can visit the Goodreads page
the Amazon page
and the official page on the author's website
(there's even a Book Club Guide on there, woohoo!)
Please, take a look at Susanne Dunlap's bio (it's worth a read, it's impressive!), and at her blog and courses. Ah, finally a historical research course worthy of the name…!!!!
You can bet I'll take that course when I can fund it!
Don't forget to add The Portraitist: A Novel of Adelaide Labille-Guiard to your Goodreads bookshelves, or any other bookshelves for that matter, and visit Dunlap's site as well as my dear Books Forward!
Then, stay tuned for my upcoming review! 🙂
Happy reading, loves!
Ad Librum Aeternam 