NEW RELEASE
The Very Picture of You - Isabel Wolfe (2011)
At 35 Gabriella "Ella" Graham is somewhat content with her life and she loves her job as a portrait painter. She gets to hear all the life stories of the people she paints. Ella has kept her past a secret for a long time but then an article is written about her, revealing that she has a father she has not seen or spoken to since she was five. Her mother, a retired ballerina, had told her that her father abandoned them for another woman and she was instead adopted by her stepfather. One day she gets an email from her real father who wants to tell his side of the story. Meanwhile her sister Chloe is getting married to Nate, an American who Ella loathes. She has been commissioned to paint a portrait of the groom, and along the way finds out that maybe the life she knew wasn't actually the truth at all. A great read about finding out new things about yourself and accepting the fact that maybe it is OK to forgive and forget. (CG)
The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff, is centred around a portrait painter who develops a forbidden love. The summary says: "Ella has always been an artist, jotting down pictures from a young age, and now in her 30s she has made it her profession. Commissioned to capture memories, fading beauty and family moments, her sitters often reveal more about themselves than merely their outward appearance. When Ella's younger sister Chloe asks her to paint a portrait of her new fiance Nate, Ella is reluctant. He is a brash American who Ella thinks has proposed far too fast, so the thought of spending many hours alone with him fills her with dread. But before long Ella realises there is more to Nate than meets the eye. Beautifully inter-weaving the stories of Ella's sitters - from the old lady with a wartime secret, to the handsome politician who has a confession to make - with Ella's own hunt for her real father and slow realisation that she is falling in love with the wrong man, Isabel Wolff delivers ... a truly unforgettable portrait of the many aspects of love." The Very Picture of You is out in September. For an extract, head to the author's website.