Dual timeline story set primarily in Vienna, Austria, about two related women in a Jewish family. The older timeline takes place mostly in the early 1900s and moves forward, and the more recent timeline starts in 1937 during the lead-up to World War II. We follow the lives of Adèle Bloch-Bauer (1881-1925), one of the (real) models for at least two of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s paintings, and Maria Altmann, her (real) niece.

Adele was a woman ahead of her time. She wanted a world of education and freedom, so she married a much older man who told her he would give her both. In the 1930’s, the storyline follows Maria, Adele's niece, during a time of great turmoil. Hitler annexed Austria (1938) and claimed the assets of Jewish citizens under the newly enacted laws of “Aryanization.”

I read this book due to my interest in art and art history. There are a number of historical facts woven into the narrative, but the primary emphasis is on the two women and their relationships with their husbands. There are a few liberties taken by the author with respect to the facts of the lives of the people she represents. I especially appreciated the sections on art. Regular readers of romances will likely enjoy it even more than I did.

3.5 ( )

Albanese detailed prose transports you between the 1900 Vienna art world where everything is beautiful, dazzling and forty years later when Maria (Adele's niece) and her family are forced from their Austrian home by the Nazis.

One of the best and will researched historical fiction reads I've read in a long time this family story of love, survival and sacrifice will have transfixed from the first chapter.

( )

Albanese detailed prose transports you between the 1900 Vienna art world where everything is beautiful, dazzling and forty years later when Maria (Adele's niece) and her family are forced from their Austrian home by the Nazis.

One of the best and will researched historical fiction reads I've read in a long time this family story of love, survival and sacrifice will have transfixed from the first chapter.

( )

After watching a Net Flix movie regarding the theft of one of the most well known of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, I read this book.

Sadly, I slogged through it. I can't recommend it. It is a story of Vienna in 1903 and Adele Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy woman who falls in love with Klimt and allows him to paint her portrait.

The story then forwards to 40 years later when anti-semitism is ever encroaching upon the lives of Jews in Austria. The painting now in the hands of the family of her niece, Maria Altmann, the Nazi's invade their home and possess the painting.

Fortunate to flee their homeland and escape. Years later, the painting is discovered and shown as one of the most interesting in an Austrian museum.

Maria's family now wages a battle with the museum for ownership of their original possession.

Well researched, and interesting, still, I cannot recommend this book. Filled with page after page of way too much unnecessary sexual content, the vivid images are distracting and take away from the beauty of the story.

This could have been a very interesting book, but the author chose to go down a road that left the reader disgusted.

One star

From the dawn of the twentieth century to the devastation of World War II, this exhilarating novel of love, war, art, and family gives voice to two extraordinary women and brings to life the true story behind the creation and near destruction of Gustav Klimt’s most remarkable paintings.