Nocturnal Book Reviews

4.5/5
Truly gorgeous. I'm reassured again and again that everything Elizabeth writes I love.

This is a contemporary romance which is not my usual genre, and if Elizabeth hasn't enquired about my interest in her short novel, I would never have read this book otherwise.

Seriously. The way she brings her characters to life makes you really root for them, all of them. I had my heart in my throat through most of the book and nearly in tears at some points.

The Genius and The Muse has two major plot lines.

Kate Mitchell is a photographer who is graduating from an art school and writing her dissertation based on a legendary photographer Reed O'Connor. Trying to understand his talent and mindset, she stumbles on to an old picture where her own professor and bunch of others stand together with Reed and a famous painter Samantha Rhodes. Both Reed and Sam seem deeply in love, and Kate's mentor makes a small remark that to understand Reed, Kate needs to understand his relationship with Sam.

Intrigued by this mysterious phrase, Kate starts digging and interviewing all the people on that picture...

The second plot line is the story of a great love between Reed and Sam and what happened to isolate them from each other, change both of them so much. Parallel to Kate's interviews and glimpses of magnetic chemistry that the couple used to have, we see how they met, fell in love and moved together to New York.

By not letting the sleeping dogs lie, Kate manages to transform her own life by meeting Javi, an antisocial sculptor friend of Reed and reunite Sam and Reed again.

Javi and Kate! *sigh* What a couple, so so right together... I love how all the love stories in Elizabeth's books are slow burn. They arise from series of circumstances, there is a spark, but then life gets in the way, and it takes time for that interest and magnetic pull to get strong enough to bring two people together. I love that! I love how real it all seems.

There is a little bit of Sidney Sheldon epicness in Miss Hunter's style, and I find it extremely appealing. Highly recommended, totally loved it!