The Final Act of Juliette Lloyd is a historical fiction art-focused mystery told in two timelines. I found the story immensely satisfying.
...I realized I too had seen terrible sights, lived through awful things, and began to wonder if getting them down on canvas might help to exorcize them from my own nightmares.
In The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby, Ellery Lloyd (the husband and wife writing team of Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos) offers a gorgeously wrought historical fiction mystery in two timelines.
In 1938, runaway heiress and aspiring artist Juliette Willoughby gives up her inheritance (and dark family history) for love, then disappears into Europe with surrealist painter Oskar Erlich.
She works tirelessly on a painting that garners significant interest, while Oskar's work doesn't get the attention he was hoping for. The tension between Juliette and Oskar begins to drive them apart, and Juliette begins to fear that her family has tracked her down in Paris.
Then Juliette and Oskar perish in a Parisian apartment fire--along with Juliette's brilliant painting.
Fifty years later, Caroline and Patrick, two Cambridge students who are falling in love, are also on the hunt for dissertation topics. They stumble upon a treasure trove of items belonging to Juliette Willoughby--and indications that the famous Paris apartment fire was no accident at all.
The modern-day timeline follows Caroline and Patrick through twists and turns, through the ins and outs of the art world, to the eventual collapse of their relationship (minor note: this occurs off page, and I found it somewhat unsatisfying).
The mysterious appearance of what seems to be a Juliette Willoughby original, followed by a tragic death within Caroline and Patrick's circle, bring the two back together, fueled by their knowledge of Juliette's motivations and their desire to understand the past more fully.
I was intrigued by the structure, and I liked the gradually revealed elements of Juliette's painting and of her past. This was immensely satisfying historical fiction.
I listened to The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby as an audiobook.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Ellery Lloyd also wrote The Club and People Like Her.
You can click here for lists of more historical fiction novels and historical fiction mysteries I've loved.
Comments