HISTORICAL FICTION: MARISSA STAPLEY

A Piece of the World By Christina Baker Kline William Morrow, 309 pages, $23.99

The latest from the New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train is about the origins of the iconic painting Christina’s World by the artist Andrew Wyeth. My grandparents had a print of this hanging in their house and I always wondered about its enigmatic female subject and the lonely-looking house so far out of her tortured reach. Here, Baker Kline gives that woman a voice: Christina Olson is explored with depth, and her unique friendship with Wyeth is unravelled in all its complexity. “Later he told me he’d been afraid to show me the painting,” the novel opens, in Christina’s words. “He thought I wouldn’t like the way he portrayed me: dragging myself across the field, fingers clutching dirt, my legs twisted behind. The arid moonscape of wheat grass and timothy. That dilapidated house in the distance, looming up like a secret that won’t stay hidden.”

The painting is stark and unusual and this book is too, but there is warmth in this tale.

The Enemies of Versailles By Sally Christie Atria, 399 pages, $22

Toronto-based author Sally Christie’s Mistresses of Versailles trilogy comes to a close with this final look at the women of Versailles.

It begins with the story of innocent beauty Jeanne Becu. Seduced by the nobility, she leaves the convent and catches the attention of the Compte du Barry, who shrewdly marries her to his brother so she can be presented to the King Louis XV is enthralled, and an affair begins that lasts the rest of the king’s life.

The story of Louis’ pampered daughter Adelaide is also told, though her plot line takes more of a heavy hand to move along. Those who have followed along will miss the 18th-century Versailles Christie has recreated on the page. It’s particularly captivating in this instalment, with France teetering at revolution’s edge. The end of this cruel era is necessary, but because Christie has come to know these characters so well she is easily able to provoke a strange sense of sympathy.

Mad Richard By Lesley Krueger ECW, 326 pages, $18.95

At first glance, the interlacing of the life of painter Richard Dadd with that of the novelist Charlotte Brontë seems a stretch — but Lesley Krueger, a Canadian journalist turned fiction and screen writer, is on her fifth novel and knows well how to weave a tale. The novel begins with Brontë’s visit to Dadd in Bedlam, an asylum he has lived in for a decade after losing his mind and committing a murder. They only meet once, but as Krueger reimagines it, this is a pivotal moment and opens the door to an exploration of the lives of the two artists: the way these lives differ and the way they are the same, and, most movingly, the struggles so many artists find common ground in: struggles with self-doubt and mental wellness and the fickle nature of the bravery it takes to show one’s soul to the world. There is much to ponder in this novel about the potentially catastrophic emotional toll of art, the irrational nature of the love, the solitude of heartache and what happens when one life touches another.

A Trial in Venice By Roberta Rich Doubleday Canada, 376 pages, $24

Another historical trilogy conclusion, this one takes place in Venice and is written by beloved Canadian historical fiction author Roberta Rich. Though I have yet to read the first two instalments, I didn’t feel lost, nor did I get the sense that anything was being repeated to keep those unfamiliar with the story on the right track.

When I finished the novel, I wanted to go back and read the first two. “A Trial in Venice” is set five years after midwife Hannah Levi was forced to flee Venice with a rescued baby of aristocratic origins in tow. She and her husband Isaac went to Constantinople, but Hannah is drawn back to her home because their beloved adopted son Matteo has been kidnapped.

Much of the story takes place in the once-opulent Jewish ghetto known as Veneto.

This is a riveting historical page-turner and a thoughtful exploration of religion, race, oppression and tyranny combined.