Next Up: Tracy Chevalier

Were you among the many who were enamored with Tracy Chevalier's bestseller Girl With the Pearl Earring?

OH, with Girl With the Pearl Earring we were delightedly moved and transported to the time of Danish painter Johannes Vermeer and drawn into a beautiful historical fiction about that beautiful, enigmatic painting. For me that book was an introduction to the historical fiction genre'. I loved it. I didn't love the film, but I did like it.

What I loved about Chevalier's GWTPE was the history, the real history, in the book. How paints were created, Vermeer's life and family, Danish culture. It was wonderfully and richly written and I adored it. That is why I picked up my next book The Virgin Blue: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier. I've had it on the book table to read for a couple of years now. I'm finally giving it some attention.

The Virgin Blue: A Novel was written before GWTPE and was, therefore, written before the fanfare of that novel.That is noteworthy because that makes this book the original Chevalier historical fiction novel. I can assure you, the wealth of historical information in this book is very satisfying and worth a read; Tracy Chevalier really did her research for this one.

I saw several different book covers for this book, all of them beautiful, but I didn't see a single book cover with the painting of the actual inspiration for the book.
It is this one:

Check back in a day or two for my post on The Virgin Blue: A Novel.
I'm enjoying it.