The Collector S Apprentice

The bestselling author of The Art Forger and The Muralist delivers a page-turning historical thriller of art and revenge, of history and love, that will transport readers to 1920s Paris and America. It’s the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris—broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiancé, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father’s art collection, prove her innocence—and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates—including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley’s murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector’s Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE ART FORGER AND THE MURALIST “Dazzling and seductive, a tour de force, The Collector’s Apprentice is an exhilarating tale of shifting identities, desire, and intrigue set between 1920s Paris and Philadelphia.”—Dawn Tripp, bestselling author of Georgia It’s the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris—broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiancé, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father’s art collection, prove her innocence—and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates—including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley’s murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector’s Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.

John Richardson's riveting memoir about growing up in England and, at twenty-five, beginning his twelve-year adventure with the controversial art collector Douglas Cooper. With a new introduction by Jed Perl, here is John Richardson's richly entertaining memoir of his life with the brilliant but difficult British art expert Douglas Cooper--a fiendish, colorful, Evelyn Waugh-like figure who single-handedly assembled the world's most important private collection of Cubist paintings. John Richardson tells the story of their ill-fated but comical association, which began in London in 1949 when Richardson was twenty-five and moved onto the Château de Castille, the famous colonnaded folly in Provence that they restored and filled with masterpieces by Picasso, Braque, Léger, and Juan Gris. Richardson unfurls a fascinating adventure through twelve years, encompassing famous artists and writers, collectors and other celebrities--Francis Bacon, Jean Cocteau, Luis Miguel Dominguín, Dora Maar, Peggy Guggenheim, and Henri Matisse, to name only a few. And central to the book is Richardson's close friendship with Picasso, which coincided with the emergence of the artist's new mistress, Jacqueline Roque, and gave Richardson an inside view of the repercussions she would have on Picasso's life and work. With an eye for detail, an ear for scandal, and a sparkling narrative style, Richardson has written a unique, fast-paced saga of modernism behind the scenes.

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art (worth over $500 million today) were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye. Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late 19th century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

Don't miss B. A. Shapiro's new novel, The Collector's Apprentice, available now! “Vibrant and suspenseful . . . Like The Art Forger, this new story takes us into the heart of what it means to be an artist.” —The Washington Post “B. A. Shapiro captivated us in 2012 with her ‘addictive’ novel The Art Forger. Now, she’s back with another thrilling tale from the art world.” —Entertainment Weekly When Alizée Benoit, an American painter working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), vanishes in New York City in 1940, no one knows what happened to her. Not her Jewish family living in German-occupied France. Not her artistic patron and political compatriot, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not her close-knit group of friends, including Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner. And, some seventy years later, not her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, who while working at Christie’s auction house uncovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind works by those now-famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Do they hold answers to the questions surrounding her missing aunt?

Instant National Bestseller Shortlisted for the 2023 Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award "Witty, literary and very funny." —Minneapolis Star Tribune Welcome to Sotheran’s, one of the oldest bookshops in the world, with its weird and wonderful clientele, suspicious cupboards, unlabeled keys, poisoned books, and some things that aren’t even books, presided over by one deeply eccentric apprentice. Some years ago, Oliver Darkshire stepped into the hushed interior of Henry Sotheran Ltd (est. 1761) to apply for a job. Allured by the smell of old books and the temptation of a management-approved afternoon nap, Darkshire was soon unteetering stacks of first editions and placating the store’s resident ghost (the late Mr. Sotheran, hit by a tram). A novice in this ancient, potentially haunted establishment, Darkshire describes Sotheran’s brushes with history (Dickens, the Titanic), its joyous disorganization, and the unspoken rules of its gleefully old-fashioned staff, whose mere glance may cause the computer to burst into flames. As Darkshire gains confidence and experience, he shares trivia about ancient editions and explores the strange space that books occupy in our lives—where old books often have strong sentimental value, but rarely a commercial one. By turns unhinged and earnest, Once Upon a Tome is the colorful story of life in one of the world’s oldest bookshops and a love letter to the benign, unruly world of antiquarian bookselling, where to be uncommon or strange is the best possible compliment.

2019 Schneider Family Book Award Honor Book “Original, brave, and addictive.”—Adam Gidwitz, bestselling author of the Newbery Honor Book The Inquisitor’s Tale Fast-paced, witty, and riveting, this contemporary fantasy adventure has magic woven through every page. The Collectors begins an enchanting two-book series from Jacqueline West, the New York Times–bestselling author of The Books of Elsewhere series. For fans of Serafina and the Black Cloak, The Isle of the Lost, and The Secret Keepers. Van has always been an outsider. He’s hard of hearing, collects trinkets, and lives with his single mother—an opera singer with a huge personality. Then one day, Van notices a girl stealing pennies from a fountain, and everything changes. He follows the girl, Pebble, and uncovers an underground society full of wishes and the people who collect them. Not all wishes are good and even good wishes often have unintended consequences, and the Collectors have made it their duty to protect us. But they aren't the only ones who have their eyes on the world’s wishes—and they may not be the good guys, after all. Jacqueline West spins a story about friendship, magic, and the gray area between good and evil. The Collectors is for fans of Cassie Beasley’s Circus Mirandus and Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener. Booklist calls it, “A brilliant fantasy adventure exploring the consequences of getting what you wish for.”

In the summer of 1963, after his father has inexplicably disappeared, leaving Cully with his three eccentric aunts on their barely profitable apple farm, Cully goes to work for a mysterious antiques dealer who has the strange hobby of collecting shadows.