Thank you to the author, publishers Macmillan and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review. 

 

There are only two things people know about the Surrealist painter Juliette Willoughby - that she died in a fire with her more famous artist lover, and that none of her artwork survives. But, when two art students begin to study Juliette they find there may be darker secrets beyond the story everyone knows. Secrets that are still having repercussions decades later. 

 

A richly detailed absorbing mystery. I loved the depth of the characters, the overlapping timelines, the reveals, the secrets which remained hidden. 

 

One of the things I always love about Ellery Lloyd stories is the roundedness and balance of the characters. No one’s perfect, everyone is nuanced, and it’s delivered so convincingly. And that’s more true than ever in this latest book. The three main characters that the story is told through, Juliette, Patrick and Caroline, are all fully breathing and formed characters. 

 

The plotting is also exquisite. I felt fully immersed and felt every heart in mouth moment of potential discovery or worried that the innocent would suffer for the sins of others. Exquisite.