Painted Lives — Charlotte Vale Allen

HE WAS THE IDOL OF THE ART WORLD.
AND THE MYSTERY OF THE CENTURY.

Mattie Sylvester, widow of one of America's most celebrated painters, spends most of her time gazing out to sea on an island off the Atlantic Coast, remembering. Her new secretary, Sarah Kidd, is fascinated by the eccentric household, and its mistress -- elegant, red-haired, fesity, and brooding. There must be tales she could tell about her fifty years with Gideon Sylvester.

Slowly, as an unlikely bond forms between the two women, Mattie unravels the past -- her early life, her circle of artist friends in the 1920s, her handsome, amusing, sexual wizard of a husband, their sons -- but Sarah is shocked as nostalgia gives way to a simmering rage. As they talk through the nights in the rambling old house, she learns the truth about Gideon, the enormity of what he did to his brilliant wife. And Sarah realizes she holds the key to a revelation that could stagger the outside world....