A brilliant and page-turning story of love, betrayal and loyalty, inspired by the unacknowledged women who saved some of the world's great masterpieces, from the bestselling author of Tuscan Daughter
Escaping to Paris after a lonely provincial childhood, aspiring painter Mathilde is working at a brasserie on the Left Bank when she is discovered by Picasso as his latest muse. She is quickly dazzled by the avant-garde artists and writers of early twentieth-century Montmartre. Losing herself in their hedonistic circles and testing her own limits, Mathilde meets a young Italian carpenter from the Louvre, Vincenzo, who is consumed by an obsessive desire to see legendary masterworks, many plundered during wartime, returned at last to Italy.
When the newspapers scream that the Mona Lisa has been stolen, Mathilde is both stunned and thrilled to discover the painting hidden in a trunk at Vincenzo's garret apartment. This secret will haunt her for years to come, first as a young single mother making desperate choices and then while working quietly under a different identity as an archivist at the Louvre. Mathilde's complicated past collides with her wartime duties when she is assigned to hide the Mona Lisa and thousands of other masterworks in monumental châteaux and monasteries while the Nazi enemy advances on Paris.
In this gripping, heartbreaking novel, Lisa Rochon captures the depth of human emotions in times of global upheaval, revealing the lengths Mathilde and her fellow citizens will go to protect the Mona Lisa, while ultimately learning how to trust herself to recognize the deepest kind of love. Readers will be swept away by the nuanced cast of characters and writing that conveys a gorgeous sense of place unique to Paris and the French landscape, while coming to understand the deep cultural meaning of the world's most iconic and enduring artworks and why invading armies are driven to possess them.
