My review of With Violets by Elizabeth Robards....

I was one of the lucky gather members of the Fiction Readers Online Reading group to receive a book called "With Violets" by Elizabeth Robards to read and review. If I saw this book on a shelf at the store I wouldnt pick it up to buy it because I tend to read books that are smaller in size and have more captivating images on the cover. But since it was a free gift I was willing to read it and review it. I learned to truly never judge a book by its cover. I loved this book! While reading it I realized it sounded very real and wanted to look up the artists to see if they really were real characters or if the author created them. At the end of the book there were author insights and I was so happy to read this information. It told of how the author was very interested in the artists of the impressionist and although she created a work of fiction that the basis of her story and characters were real people who she created a story of what could have happened in their lives based on rumors at the time etc. I was saddend at the end that the two main characters never wound up happy together and instead Berthe married Edouards brother Eugene. After reading this story I am intrigued with the characters and I intend to look up on the internet and see what I can find out about these artists. I felt the author helped me get to know the characters very well. I felt like I knew them personally while reading this. Until the last few pages it didnt really talk much about the impressionism movement much. I think it was more of a story of the love between Berthe and Edouard then anything else. It also showed a great deal of what life was like in paris during the war in the late 1800s. I would recommend this book to many people. Artists would love to read this as well as the common woman such as I:)