The Muse

It's 1967 and Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. She takes a job at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art and is taken under the wing of the mesmerizing and mysterious Marjorie Quick. When Odelle discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles—a Spanish artist whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades—she finds herself drawn into a complex web of secrets and deceptions.
The truth about the painting lies in rural Spain, 1936, where Olive Schloss, the daughter of a renowned art dealer, is harboring ambitions of her own. Olive grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and Teresa's half brother, Isaac Robles, a painter buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss family's lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come.
In vividly rendered detail, acclaimed and bestselling author Jessie Burton spins a tale of desire, ambition, and how the tides of history inevitably shape and define our lives.

Jessie Burton was born in London in 1982. She studied at Oxford University and the Central School of Speech and Drama. The Miniaturist is her first novel.