Very much enjoyed this book. My full review is located at C-Spot Reviews: http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/1640 ( )

At 16, Italian- American Rafaela is a ravishing beauty – and her stepfather wants her married as soon as possible. Rafaela resists the awful plan to marry her off to a cousin in Sicily, and when her much-hated step-grandmother nearly dies on the steamship crossing to Europe, Rafaela makes her escape. Having no money, she exchanges sex for a ticket to Paris. The year is 1927 and Paris is full of artists and writers – there is no shortage of wealthy men to use for a while – but then Rafaela meets Tamara, and her world turns upside down. Tamara is an artist, she wants Rafaela to pose for her, and together they create a beautiful painting that sparks a heated bidding war between two wealthy art collectors. Rafaela falls in love, for the first time in her life, with Tamara – but their passionate physical affair cannot erase the trouble in Tamara’s past. This book, peppered with allusions to Paris and its famous “Lost Generation” of artists, designers, poets, musicians, and writers during the time between the wars, evokes the sensuality of the times and the bitter –and immediate – pasts of the expatriates. ( )

An amazingly rich novel. ( )

While not a book I would have been likely to stumble across on my own, I'm deeply indebted to G.P. Putnam's Sons / Riverhead for providing me with the opportunity for an early read. Here we have a fictional romance between two historical women, Tamara de Lempicka (artist) and Rafaela (model/muse), set in that uneasy period between WWI and WWII.

Although I knew nothing about Tamara coming into the story, and even less about art, her history is absolutely fascinating. I suspect the story might carry a bit more weight for those who are familiar with her work, and who can debate the 'was she/wasn't she' lesbian aspect, but I can attest to the fact that ignorance doesn't in any way take away from the read.

What really drew me into the story was the way in which Avery explores all aspects of Tamara's life, really getting into the dark side of how such passion can impact familial and professional relationships. This is not a happy-go-lucky tale of lazy lovers, content to pose and paint the day away, but of two women consumed by their work. Tamara comes across as a selfish, petty, arrogant woman, but rather than turn me off, I found her contrast to the sweet, sensitive, vulnerable Rafaela compelling.

If I had one issue with the book, it's with the brevity of the scenes. I like to get lost in a story, to emerge from a thirty or forty page chapter, and be shocked to find that it's gotten dark outside. The chapters here are often comprised of single page or even half-page scenes that work from an artistic perspective (as if each scene were an individual brush stroke), but it's just not my style. ( )

Extremely well-researched. Lots of name-dropping and historical detail. Too much even. I could never get past the feeling of reading an extremely well-researched book. The magic of the story eluded me--perhaps because I didn't empathize with Rafaela's slavish adoration of de Lempicka whose sense of entitlement and egoism left me cold. ( )