The Wayward Muse : A Novel

Pulled straight from the canvasses of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Hickey's The Wayward Musepaints a vivid portrait of the mysterious and beautiful Jane Burden, the Pre-Raphaelite icon. A stableman's daughter raised in the slums of Oxford, seventeen-year-old Jane is convinced of her own homeliness. But her fortunes forever change when she is discovered by the charismatic and irreverent painter, Rossetti. Jane is swept into the artist's world as model and muse and falls madly in love with him. When Rossetti abruptly leaves her, Jane reluctantly agrees to marry his protege, a shy craftsman named William Morris. But her passion for Rossetti never dies, and years later all three become entangled in a love triangle from which they will never escape. Atmospheric and haunting, Elizabeth Hickey's latest historic novel gracefully explores the delicate and capricious nature of both love and art.