Becoming Lisette (The Queen’s Painter, Book 1)
The first volume in Rebecca Glenn’s The Queen’s Painter series, Becoming Lisette centers on strong-willed and beautiful Elizabeth “Lisette” Vigee, who dreams of becoming a painter at a time and place where such dreams were almost certainly doomed to failure.
Her parents are busy planning an advantageous marriage for her, while she is busy trying her best to hone her skills. When her father suddenly dies, her mother re-marries a wealthy jeweller who becomes fascinated with Lisette. This fascination has the positive effect of gaining her commissions and admission to the social ranks of potential clients, but it has the drawback of also being unseemly, as it becomes obvious that her new stepfather is more interested in controlling her talents than allowing them to grow on their own.
This creates several tense dilemmas for Lisette as the novel gears up to its climax, and Rebecca Glenn handles it all smoothly and adroitly, imbuing all her characters but especially Lisette with believably realized personalities and giving a very vivid sense of the 18th century art world. I finished it eagerly looking forward to the next volume in the series.
