The Ingenue by Rachel Kapelke-Dale
Like The Ballerinas (2021) Kapelke-Dale’s latest delves into the life of an artist, although unlike her prior novel The Ingenue focuses on a single individual—and one who has stepped aside from her performing past.
Saskia Kreis, a piano prodigy from an early age, develops her gift during a childhood spend in a privileged suburb of Milwaukee. The daughter of an imaginative feminist author-artist and a professional cellist, she grows up in in the Elf House, a brewery baron’s ornately fantastic but decrepit mansion. Saskia spends a mostly solitary and singular girlhood traveling the world, amazing audiences with her precocious and highly developed talent on the keyboard. But as she enters her teens, her mother’s much older university colleague, a photographer, takes her under his wing—and into his bed. Their secret affair has a profound impact on Saskia’s later life, resulting in the abandonment of music career, dead-end jobs, dodgy life choices, and damage to her hands in the amateur boxing ring.
Her mother’s sudden death draws her reluctantly but dutifully back to Elf House, in the expectation that she and her father will inherit it. Conflict over whether to keep or sell the dilapidated money pit and surrounding estate become moot when they discover that Evie Harper Kreis has left it to Patrick Kintner—Saskia’s seducer, whose surprise inheritance and simultaneous photographic exhibition sparks the shocking denouement.
Saskia’s childhood, her difficult coming of age, and the destructive consequences of a disastrous affair are revealed in flashbacks. Through the course of the story, her weaknesses and resentments are transformed into strengths. Kapelke-Dale’s revelation of the artistic temperament and creative passion is especially well done, and her conflicted, motivated, and multi-dimensional characters are effectively drawn. (St. Martin’s, 320 pp., hardcover/ebook/audio, December 2022)
The Duchess Countess: The Woman who Scandalized Eighteenth-Century London by Catherine Ostler
A comprehensive and highly detailed biography of a Georgian adventuress and her adventures. The depiction of 18th century England, Europe, and Russia demonstrates a perfect combination of aristocratic lineage, royal access, ambition, physical attractiveness and disregard for social norms as embodied by Elizabeth Chudleigh, Countess of Bristol and Duchess of Kingston.
A member of the royal household, an intimate of the Prince and Princess of Wales (Frederick and Augusta) in the reign of King George II, Elizabeth made an impetuous marriage to the grandson of Lord Bristol. In order to maintain her position as maid of honour to the Princess, she didn't reveal her marital status, and her bridegroom was conveniently placed out of the way, first by his naval service and his foreign travels.
Elizabeth, after bearing and losing a child--also in secret--presented herself a single woman and gadded about in high society. Her estranged spouse consistently repudiated the marriage and eventually sought a divorce, which would have required Elizabeth to acknowledge its legality. Her lawsuit against him resulted in a declaration of invalidity, allowing her to marry up--to the Duke of Kingston, with whom she enjoyed a brief period of happiness. At his death, she inherited his property and fortune, and by his will was permitted to retain them as long as she remained a widow. She also inherited the enmity of his relatives, who charged her with bigamy, resulting in one of Britain's most notorious legal proceedings--witnessed by Queen Charlotte (wife of George III) and members of her family. After the House of Lords declared her guilty, she spent her time in Prussia, Paris, Rome. In Russia, where she built a magnificent mansion, she was for a time a curious and barely tolerated member of Catherine the Great's court.
The subject of this biography is frequently shown to be her own worst enemy and undeniably unstable, while at the same appearing as a sympathetic figure due to her ill-usage by the male establishment that marshalled forces against her. A thorough work with great depth and detail, this book is recommended to readers interested in the complexities of this prominent, scandalous, and unrepentant 18th century woman. (Atria Books, hardcover, paperback, ebook, audio/427 pp., 2022).