Listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction, The Florentine’s Secret (2021) by Jane Thornley is Book 3 in the Agency of the Ancient Lost & Found series. Florence, Italy 1996: a young archaeologist follows a hunch that compels her to knock down a wall and retrieve a hidden sketch which may be by the renown Renaissance master Botticelli. But before she can alert the authorities and claim the find, the sketch is stolen leaving her standing in the rubble. Three decades later, the drive for retribution brings this woman to Phoebe McCabe’s door. The sketch may have been a study for a se ..read more

Listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction, The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York (2023) by Joseph Horowitz is set in a fin-de-siècle world music capital teeming with fabled personalities. Gustav and Alma Mahler arrived in New York City in 1907. He had been invited to lead the Metropolitan Opera; his glamorous wife accompanied him to the New World. His embattled American career places their legendary marriage in sharp relief. Nineteen years Gustav’s junior, Alma was his constant companion and occasional soulmate, sometimes his muse, always his caretaker, a woman otherwise restless and unfu ..read more

Listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction, Bloomsbury Girls (2023) by Natalie Jenner is a compelling and heartwarming story set in post-war London. Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare bookstore that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:   Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiancé was killed in action during World War II, the b ..read more

Listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction, Moonflower Murders (2020) by Anthony Horowitz is the Book 2 in the Magpie Murders series. Farlingaye Hall is a beautiful hotel in Suffolk on the east coast of England. Unfortunately, it is also the site of the brutal murder of Frank Parris, a retired advertising executive. Stefan Codrescu, a Romanian maintenance man, is arrested after police discover blood spatter on his clothes and bed linen. He is found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. It appears to be an open-and-shut case, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Al ..read more

Listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction, The Honeymoon (2017) by Dinitia Smith is based on the life of George Eliot, famed author of Middlemarch. When George Eliot agreed to marry John Walter Cross, twenty years her junior, in Venice in June 1880, Eliot was recovering from the death of George Henry Lewes, her beloved companion of twenty-six years. Eliot was bereft, left at the age of sixty to contemplate profound questions about her physical decline, her fading appeal, and the prospect of loneliness. In her youth, Mary Ann Evans—who would later be known as George Eliot—was a c ..read more

Listed in the Other category on Art In Fiction, The Perfumist of Paris (2023) by Alka Joshi is the 3rd novel in The Jaipur Trilogy. Paris, 1974: Radha is now living in Paris with her husband, Pierre, and their two daughters. She still grieves for the baby boy she gave up years ago, when she was only a child herself, but she loves being a mother to her daughters, and she’s finally found her passion—the treasure trove of scents.   She has an exciting and challenging position working for a master perfumer, helping to design completely new fragrances for clients and building her career one sc ..read more

Listed in the Film category on Art In Fiction, The Brightest Star (2023) by Gail Tsukiyama reimagines the life of the first Asian American screen star whose legacy endures—a remarkable and inspiring woman who broke barriers and became a shining light in Hollywood history. At the dawn of a new century, America is falling in love with silent movies, including young Wong Liu Tsong. The daughter of Chinese immigrants who own a laundry, Wong Liu and her older sister Lew Ying (Lulu) are taunted and bullied for their Chinese heritage. But while Lulu diligently obeys her parents and learns to speak Ch ..read more

Listed in the Music category on Art In Fiction, The Second Ending (2023) is Michelle Hoffman’s debut novel. Prudence Childs was once the most famous kindergartner on the planet. After teaching herself to play piano at age three, she performed at the White House, appeared on talk shows, and inspired a generation to take up lessons. But as adolescence closed in, Prudence realized that she was being exploited and pushed into fame by her cruel grandmother, so she ran away. Broke and alone, she took a job writing commercial jingles, which earned her a fortune but left her creatively adrift. &n ..read more

Listed in the Dance category on Art In Fiction, What Disappears (2022) by Barbara Quick is a gripping multi-generational tale that spans 1880s Tsarist Russia to Paris at the start of World War I. Jeannette Dupres, one of two identical twins born to a Jewish family in dire financial straits, is spirited out of an orphanage as an infant by a couple from France. Her twin, Sonya Luria, raised to believe her sister died at birth, has her life upended by the 1903 pogrom in Kishinev. The sisters are reunited in the doorway of Anna Pavlova's dressing room, when they both get jobs in Paris with Sergei ..read more

Listed in the Literature category on Art In Fiction, Cities of Women (2024) by Kathleen B. Jones is a dual narrative separated by several centuries. Cities of Women examines the lives of women who dare to challenge the social norms of their days, risking their reputations and livelihoods for the sake of their passions. In the 21st century, we meet Verity Frazier, a disillusioned history professor who sets out to prove that the artist responsible for the illuminated artwork in Christine de Pizan’s medieval manuscripts was a remarkable woman named Anastasia. As Anastasia’s story unfold ..read more