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Oct 31, 2017liljables rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
The Muse takes us back and forth through time, between the 1930s and 1960s. We begin in '60s London, where Odelle Bastien is still struggling to find her place in this iconic city, five years after leaving Trinidad. When a new relationship collides with her promising new job, a mysterious piece of art surfaces and raises questions in Odelle's personal and professional life. Flashback to northern Spain in the 1930s, where Olive Schloss and her parents have escaped the bustle (and the rising tension that would lead to WWII) of London. Olive has a secret passion (and legitimate talent) for painting, but she knows her art dealer father will never take her seriously; her work takes on a new fervency thanks to the inspiration provided by the Spanish countryside and their Spanish caretaker, Isaac Robles. I think Burton made great use of this back and forth narrative structure. I'll admit that I found the 1960s story line slightly more compelling - Odelle's struggle with racism, her growing distance from her only friend from home, and her mentor/mentee relationship with her supervisor, Marjorie Quick, kept me eagerly awaiting those chapters. I also appreciated the fact that, even though her relationship with Lawrie kicked off the main plot, the romance itself took a back-burner to the platonic and professional relationships in Odelle's life. The alternating chapters were intriguing in their own right, with the inscrutable Robles siblings keeping me guessing until the last page. I'd hesitate to call this novel historical fiction, but you could almost call it "art fiction" - the author paid great attention to detail both in describing the production of the fictional works in this book, and in recounting the real-life pieces that were produced in Spain during this period.