Review: The Art Forger

Mystery, suspense, art, and love fill the pages of B.A. Shapiro's The Art Forger.

Claire Roth, once a rising star in the art world, now fills her days working for Reproductions.com painting copies of famous paintings. She is renowned for her imitations of Degas, whose work has long been her inspiration. Each day when she finishes the work that pays the bills, she returns to her own painting, her beloved windows series, which she hopes to one day present in her own show.

Technique has always captivated Claire. In her youth, she spent hours in museums studying the works of the great artists on display. She attempted to imitate their techniques first by copying their painting and then by applying to her own work.

Shapiro descriptions of the techniques of painting bringing the art form to life. The act of painting becomes a character in its own right. 

Aiden Markel offers her the opportunity to present her paintings, but first she must copy a Degas for him. The Degas he brings her is the missing painting that was stolen from the Isabella Gardner museum twenty years ago. As she studies the painting, she realizes that something is off. She has spent years painting Degas works. She begins to suspect that the painting always thought to be an original Degas is actually a copy. So why would Isabella Gardner one of the most renowned art collectors of her time, hang a copy in her museum?

The possibility of having her own show is too great, this is an opportunity she can't let slip by. Aiden visits often, and their business arrangement becomes more than business. She is falling in love with him.

Claire struggles with what she is doing, who she was, who she is, and who she wants to be as the mystery of the painting is revealed.

The Art Forger is the January selection of the She Reads book club. Hop on over today and leave a comment there for the chance to win your own copy of The Art Forger.