Book Review: Botticelli’s Bastard by Stephen Maitland-Lewis

About:
Botticelli’s Bastard by Stephen Maitland-Lewis is a novel taking place in Europe with a strange premise. The novel combines elements of magic, fantasy, historical fiction and art history.

The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book –to enter fill out the Raf­fle­copt­ter form at the end of the post.

• 286 pages
• Publisher: Glyd-Evans Press
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0983259690

 

My rat­ing for Botticelli’s Bastard — 3

Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format*

Thoughts:
Botticelli’s Bastard by Stephen Maitland-Lewis is a novel that combines elements of magic, mystics and history to tell a story. I approached the book with a healthy knowledge and interest in the World War II era and was looking forward to read what the author weaved.

The protagonist of the book, an art dealer named Giovanni Fabrizzi, finds an old painting of an Italian Count that starts talking to him. The picture tells Giovanni that it was painted by famed artist Sandro Botticelli and its history from the 15th Century to the 20th Century when it was stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis.

There are several other minor subplots, such as Giovanni’s failing second marriage and his relationship with his son which are basically meant to act as antagonists to the old man’s ability to hear the Count (he’s the only one that can). The author certainly did his job doing the historical and art-history research, I enjoyed reading about the picture’s past and extended my lacking knowledge in art history.

While at certain times the dialogue seemed stretched and odd, I did enjoy the story which took a second place to the historical facts. Despite the sometimes odd dialogue, I liked the concept in this light, easy to read novel.

Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format*

Give­away

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer: I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account