A review by pjkerrison
The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis
5.0
March 21, 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It is totally unfair to rank books in order of preference when an author you love writes so well, and tells such different stories. Sure, there are themes similar in all, but that is the appeal here.
Women who are complex, intelligent, talented and strong. A breathtaking historical landmark. New York City. Multiple timelines. These are the staples of Fiona Davis’ novels. This is a writer who makes me feel it unfair to rank her novels because they’re all so lovely, so enriching to my modern day literature palate, and just so goddamned good.
With a quick, penetrating mind, Davis’ extensive research and storytelling is both amazing and wondrous. From start to finish, she never lets us down. I have genuinely marveled at the four novels of hers I l have read. No two the same or repetitive, she has created characters we want to know. Some, we want to meet. Some, both male and female alike, we may find ourselves wanting their strength and prudence.
An art class in a small room in the depression era. The information booth on the main floor nearly 50 years later. Davis weaves these areas of the Grand Central Terminal together seamlessly, smoothly and with an easy to believe tale.
She portrays an illustrator turned painter in the 20’s teaching in the lost Grand Central School of Art so well, you’ll feel you had a brush or pencil in hand. You’ll imagine the watercolor paint on your clothes. You need not know anything of art. Davis makes us comfortable and learned readers. She will educate you just enough to feel better about your new found knowledge, while not for a moment coming across as patronizing.
She features another woman about fifty years later. A woman who went in to have some cancer removed and woke to a mutilated breast removed from her person, as was part of the interior of her chest. Shortly after, her husband left her. A single mother, feeling maimed and scarred needs work. She finds a job at Grand Central Terminal Information Booth. She then, whilst in the throes of a brief - we’ll call it romantic - interlude finds a sheet of paper with a sketch on one side, a water color painting on the other.
You’ll need to read it for anything more and I can assure you it’s brilliant and beautiful, smart and at times rather funny, but most of all beautifully written with magnificent characters.
I don’t want my passage of life with Fiona Davis novels to come to an end but I am running out of them. I just take to it like a moth to a flame and don’t care if I get burned. She lights her own literary fires in each undertaking and I am a willing participant in each.
I am going to reiterate I feel it unfair to rank these books of hers … but my heart is leaving me no choice. It is telling me I have to tell you … I just adore, love, will read again, and must get a hardcover first edition all to myself of The Masterpiece. Because in my opinion, few books have ever been so perfectly titled and it is easily the best of the 27 books I have read thus far in 2023.
Damn you Davis. How dare you make me love one of yours over another.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It is totally unfair to rank books in order of preference when an author you love writes so well, and tells such different stories. Sure, there are themes similar in all, but that is the appeal here.
Women who are complex, intelligent, talented and strong. A breathtaking historical landmark. New York City. Multiple timelines. These are the staples of Fiona Davis’ novels. This is a writer who makes me feel it unfair to rank her novels because they’re all so lovely, so enriching to my modern day literature palate, and just so goddamned good.
With a quick, penetrating mind, Davis’ extensive research and storytelling is both amazing and wondrous. From start to finish, she never lets us down. I have genuinely marveled at the four novels of hers I l have read. No two the same or repetitive, she has created characters we want to know. Some, we want to meet. Some, both male and female alike, we may find ourselves wanting their strength and prudence.
An art class in a small room in the depression era. The information booth on the main floor nearly 50 years later. Davis weaves these areas of the Grand Central Terminal together seamlessly, smoothly and with an easy to believe tale.
She portrays an illustrator turned painter in the 20’s teaching in the lost Grand Central School of Art so well, you’ll feel you had a brush or pencil in hand. You’ll imagine the watercolor paint on your clothes. You need not know anything of art. Davis makes us comfortable and learned readers. She will educate you just enough to feel better about your new found knowledge, while not for a moment coming across as patronizing.
She features another woman about fifty years later. A woman who went in to have some cancer removed and woke to a mutilated breast removed from her person, as was part of the interior of her chest. Shortly after, her husband left her. A single mother, feeling maimed and scarred needs work. She finds a job at Grand Central Terminal Information Booth. She then, whilst in the throes of a brief - we’ll call it romantic - interlude finds a sheet of paper with a sketch on one side, a water color painting on the other.
You’ll need to read it for anything more and I can assure you it’s brilliant and beautiful, smart and at times rather funny, but most of all beautifully written with magnificent characters.
I don’t want my passage of life with Fiona Davis novels to come to an end but I am running out of them. I just take to it like a moth to a flame and don’t care if I get burned. She lights her own literary fires in each undertaking and I am a willing participant in each.
I am going to reiterate I feel it unfair to rank these books of hers … but my heart is leaving me no choice. It is telling me I have to tell you … I just adore, love, will read again, and must get a hardcover first edition all to myself of The Masterpiece. Because in my opinion, few books have ever been so perfectly titled and it is easily the best of the 27 books I have read thus far in 2023.
Damn you Davis. How dare you make me love one of yours over another.