Morgan Christopher has seen better days. Once an aspiring artist, she’s serving a prison term for a crime she didn’t commit. And then one day, she gets offered an unbelievable opportunity, and her life changes again.
A legendary artist whose work she admired stipulated in his will that Morgan must be hired to restore an historic WWII-era mural to hang in a gallery that he had designed before his death. She has no idea how he knew her name and she has no experience with restoration, but if she does it, she’s free. Of course, there’s a very strict deadline, one that the artist's daughter is going to ensure she meets—or else.
The mural is in worse shape than anyone imagined, and there are some strange images included. The original artist allegedly lost her mind and disappeared before the mural could be finished. , but first she has to learn how to restore the mural and ready it to be hung in the gallery. It's no easy feat, especially given the short time period she has. But failure is not an option.
Morgan becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the artist. At the same time, she is struggling with trying to start her life again, although she is wracked with guilt about what happened in the accident that led to her prison term, as well as anger at the person who left her in the lurch. How can a person who has never been really given love or respect love or respect themselves?
In dual narratives, we follow the artist’s journey in 1940 and what happened to her, and we follow Morgan’s efforts to beat the clock and the damage that time has inflicted on the mural. The artist's story is one of being a stranger in a small town, jealousy, racial tension, and struggling with mental illness.
This is a really compelling, well-told book that I really enjoyed. I definitely saw there was potential for Chamberlain to take Morgan's story down several more melodramatic roads and I was so glad she didn't do that. I did think, however, that there were a few too many coincidences for my liking.
This is the first of Chamberlain's books I've read, but it won't be the last, as many friends have spoken very highly of her. This would probably be a really good movie or television miniseries!
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