Next Meeting: December 16, 2021

 🌲 Holiday Potluck at Kim's🌲

The Artist Colony

  by Joanna Fitzpatrick

It's 1924, and Sarah Cunningham arrives in Carmel-by-the-Sea from Paris to bury her estranged older sister, Ada Belle. En route, Sarah is stunned to learn that Ada Belle's death had been categorized as a suicide. The inquest's verdict makes no sense. Ada Belle's reputation was growing: her plein air paintings regularly sold out, and she was about to show her portraits for the first time, which would have catapulted her career.

What begins as a short trip to bid Ada Belle adieu turns into a protracted stay for Sarah. She puts her own artistic career on hold and, trailed by Ada Belle's devoted dog, Albert, becomes a secret sleuth, a task made harder by the misogyny and racism she discovers in this seemingly idyllic locale. From the posh Hotel del Monte to the windswept sands of Carmel Beach to Robinson Jeffers's Tor House to Point Lobos's Whalers Cove, Sarah immerses herself in the women's artist colony to discover Ada Belle's secrets--and to expose a killer.

Part mystery, part historical fiction, this engrossing novel celebrates the artistic talents of early women painters, the deep bonds of sisterhood, the muse that is beautiful scenery, and the dogged determination of one young woman to discover the truth, to protect an artistic legacy, and to give her sister the farewell she deserves.