While I’m not much of a painter myself, as much as I would like to be, I still love to admire the art format. Outside of gothic architecture, paintings are my next favorite art format to study. I had spent the day looking around, of course I stopped to get a look at the “Mona Lisa” with my own eyes. I mean, it’s one of the most famous paintings in the world. But, that’s not what you’re here for, is it? I must admit, I was so taken with all the beautiful artwork around me that I was horrible about paying attention to my surroundings. I do remember seeing someone familiar there though! They seemed strangely fascinated with a very specific painting there. I think it was of a Russian princess…I can’t be too sure.
I went back the next day to see the exhibits I had missed, but it was all shut down! The police pulled me aside and started questioning me about some stolen painting! I’m not going to lie, that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. They kept asking me what I was doing there the day before, and just kept answering that I was looking at the paintings. Retracing my steps was a little difficult under such pressure, but they finally came around and believed my story. I tried my best to remember who else I saw there, you know, to give them something to go on (and to keep them from visiting me again!). I think Sandy Barela might have been the one staring at the painting.
You can find her account of what she saw tomorrow!
About the Book
Book: Slashed Canvas
Author: Liz Tolsma
Held prisoner by all she’s lost, Katarina’s about to lose all she has.
Grand Duchess Katarina Volstova barely escaped the Russian revolution, arriving in Paris just before the birth of her twin daughters. With her heart still captive in her homeland, she haunts the Louvre each day, spending hours gazing at one painting, lost in her pain.
Not the man he once was, Timothy Smythe never returned home to England after the Great War. Instead, he hides himself away doing maintenance in the Louvre and watching the beautiful woman whose pain seems riveted on one painting.
When Katarina returns home to find her daughters and their nanny missing, the loss opens her eyes to all she has to lose now.
Frantic to find her girls, her distress causes Timothy to offer his assistance. Together they put together clues to a puzzle they must complete before the kidnapper ensures Katarina and her daughters are never reunited.
Slashed Canvas offers a retelling of The Lost Princess that mingles self-centered grief, spoiled little girls, and proof that nothing will stop a mother from saving her children.