The Artist Colony
Book Feature - The Artist Colony by Joanna FitzPatrick
HBL Note: I heard that Joanna FitzPatrick starts all of her book projects at her small hameau in Southern France. Does that not sound like the most idyllic writing environment? She was raised in Hollywood, so it’ll come as no surprise that her writing career started with screenplays before she moved into writing books. THE ARTIST COLONY is her third book and is set in the mid-1920s about a famous painter who travels from Paris to Carmel-by-the-Sea to bury her estranged sister. Scroll down to read more.
From the publisher:
July 1924. Sarah Cunningham, a young Modernist painter, arrives in Carmel-by-the-Sea from Paris to bury her older sister, Ada Belle. En route, she is shocked to learn that Ada Belle’s suspicious death is a suicide. But why kill herself? Her plein air paintings were famous and her upcoming exhibition of portraitures would bring her even wider recognition.
Sarah puts her own artistic career on hold and, trailed by Ada Belle’s devoted dog, Albert, becomes a secret sleuth, a task made harder by the misogyny and racism she discovers in this seemingly idyllic locale.
Part mystery, part historical fiction, this engrossing novel celebrates the artistic talents of early women painters, the deep bonds of sisterhood, the muse that is beautiful scenery, and the determination of one young woman to discover the truth, to protect an artistic legacy, and to give her sister the farewell she deserves.