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Erin Bartels stops by the podcast this week to chat about her new book, The Lady with the Dark Hair. In addition to talking about this fantastic book, we chat about Erin’s own artistic abilities, her love affair with books, and she answers whether or not her son likes to read, plus she shares her husband’s podcast, High and Silver Presents Pilgrim’s Progress. Patrons hear about what is going to be her first international trip.
The Lady with the Dark Hair by Erin Bartels
Esther Markstrom and her artist mother have always been proud of their ancestor, painter Francisco Vella. They even run a small museum and gallery dedicated to raising awareness of his scandalously underappreciated work. But when Esther reconnects with her former art history professor, she finds her once-solid family history on shaky ground as questions arise about Vella’s greatest work–a portrait entitled The Lady with the Dark Hair.
In 1879, Catalan orphan-turned-fugitive Viviana Torrens has found sanctuary serving in the home of an aging artist in Southern France. It is in his studio that she meets Francisco Vella, a Gibraltarian merchant who sells artists’ pigments. When her past catches up to her, she is compelled to pose as Vella’s sister and join him on his travels or be deported back to Spain to stand trial. Along the way she will discover that the many parts she has been playing in order to hide her identity have far-reaching implications she never could have foreseen.
This dual-timeline story from award-winning author Erin Bartels takes readers from the sleepy Midwest to the sultry Mediterranean on a relentless search for truth, identity, and the freedom to follow one’s dreams.
“Wow! This book is captivating and inspiring! I knew I would love it, and I do! The dual times lines are expertly interwoven. I enjoyed learning about artists and their passion! This is a book that will stay with me for a while. Erin’s books are so thought-provoking.”
““The Lady with the Dark Hair” is everything and more of what I enjoy about Bartels’ style of writing. She draws me in with her characters and the dual storyline made me not want to put this book down.”
Get your copy of The Lady with the Dark Hair by Erin Bartels.
Check out her husband’s podcast here.
ERIN BARTELS writes character-driven fiction for curious people. Her readers know to expect that each of her novels will tell a unique story about fallible characters so tangible that it’s hard to believe they are not real people. Whether urban, rural, or somewhere in between, her settings come alive with carefully crafted details that engage all the senses and transport the reader to a singular time and place. And her themes of reckoning with the past, improving the present, and looking with hope to the future leave her readers with a sense of peace and possibility.
Erin is the award-winning author of We Hope for Better Things, The Words between Us, All That We Carried, The Girl Who Could Breathe Under Water, Everything Is Just Beginning, and The Lady with the Dark Hair (coming March 2024). A two-time Christy finalist and winner of two WFWA Star Awards and two Michigan Notable Book Awards, Erin has been a publishing professional for more than twenty years. After eighteen years in the capital city of a state that is 40% water, she now lives with her family in a charming small town surrounded by farm fields and pasturelands.
You can find her on Facebook @ErinBartelsAuthor and on Instagram @erinbartelswrites.