I just obtained this book for a monthly book discussion group. It looks interesting. I'm starting it today, so I'll write another entry as soon as I'm done.

This book was really good. The only part that was a little confusing was the reverse order of the stories. Sometimes, it was difficult to figure out the path of the painting. Overall, I thought it was really well done.

Sending this to Cyberkedi. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks for trading.

Received as part of a book swap.

This novel traces the history of an enigmatic painting that may - or may not - be a lost Vermeer. It starts in the present day, at a college where a professor whose father was a Nazi keeps the painting in his office. He loves the painting for what it is, but believes that it just might be the work of the legendary Dutch artist.

The novel works backwards, tracing the various owners of the painting, from a doomed family of Jews to 19th century couple whose marriage is on the rocks, to a family that struggles to survive a terrible flood and receives the painting as a mysterious gift along with an abandoned infant - back to its creator and the girl who is the subject of the painting. The characters are well-rounded and very human, and the mysterious painting has a different effect on each person who comes in contact with it. Because the chapters retrace the painting's travels through time and space, and from one owner to another, the reader can follow its journey more easily by knowing where it is headed. Also, the painting's most important secret is not revealed until the very end.

The questions in the back are fun to answer. This would be a good book for a reading group.

RELEASE NOTES:

In the OBCZ area in the back.

Took this book from the OBCZ at Johnnie Crackens last night!
Nice pub, nice books...Took this one just for the fun of letting it travel to the Netherlands, might read it while in the states!

This book seemed especially interesting, since its story takes place in The Netherlands :-)

Finally, finally read the book. It travelled with me from Atlanta to Tilburg and ended up on my bookshelve, waiting to be read. It passed through my hands several times and each time I decided I wanted to read it sometime...untill it came of the shelve for the ReadingChallenge of reading the oldest TBR books on your BCshelve. Finished just in time to take it with me to Germany, to the convention in Mainz, where I will highly recommend it, because I really enjoyed this book. The stories are so well-composed and I liked the backwards chronology, which revealed the painting’s history slowly but surely, in the light of some Dutch history. I’m really glad I (finally) read it!

At the convention bookbuffet!

Found it at the convention in Mainz, Germany