I loved this book. It led me to read every book by this author. Though many had common elements they were all unique in their own way. I highly recommend any book by Rosalind Laker.

Having visited modern Amsterdam and surrounds, I enjoyed being immersed in the lives of intelligent young women of a different time. Learned a little about the land, its history, and its art while also enjoying a satisfying love story. Enough tension to be interesting, enough detail to be realistic, and characters I wanted to see succeed. A pleasant read.

Heerlijk boek om te lezen. Het had 720 bladzijdes. Eerst dacht ik te dik laat maar. Maar toch begonnen en het leest heel lekker weg. Zo mooi om te lezen hoe het vroeger allemaal ging!

Although this book could be categorized as a romance, there is so much intrigue and deception to keep the reader well entertained. I consider this story a light read with enough factual information about the era and setting to make it very interesting and plausible. The family dynamics of the story's main character has enough twists and turns to bring a few surprises although the reader can anticipate what will happen in some instances. The setting is Holland in the 1600's. The story is about the family of an arrogant painter whose gambling habits causes hardships and dilemmas. An unscrupulous business man takes advantage of the painter in order to satisfy his infatuation with the eldest daughter; but the daughter despises him. Read the story to find out how the golden tulip prevails.

This was a great book set just after the crazy tulip craze. A young artist who is the daughter of an artist gets the opportunity to apprentice under Johannes Vermeer, painter of the Girl with a Pearl Earring. She has attracted the insane lust of a crazy man leaving her to pursue her dream, true love, and passions while working to gain freedom from an obsessed man. I have read Laker's To Dance with Kings which is an amazingly beautiful book set during the building of Versailles!

Love reading about artisst of the past..especially Impressionists. enjoyed this a lot

This was a great read. Being able to leave the current pandemic for a few hours each day was a huge blessing. The hours I spent in Delft painting with Francesca were a fantastic escape from reality. Learning more about tulips and family life in Amsterdam were also very interesting.
This book is being compared to girl with pearl earring but I thought it was a actually much better.
Definitely want to read more by this author.

4.5 stars

Francesca studies painting with her talented father in 17th century Holland. Unfortunately, her father's instruction is not regular. He also gambles and is a spendthrift. Francesca and a tulip grower become romantically involved, but her father, to pay off gambling debts, contracts her marriage to a businessman(the bad guy) who is secretly aiding France against William of Orange. She is allowed to go to Delft to finish her apprenticeship with Vermeer. After several detours, there is a happy ending.

Francesca, Aletta, and Sybella are daughters of a painter, Hendrik Visser, who has a great deal of talent, but often drinks and gambles his earned money away so that the family is always struggling to make ends meet. His drunkenness and gambling only gets worse when his wife dies and when a rich man by the name of Ludolf van Deventer decides that he wants Francesca for his bride even though she is not the least bit interested in him (and despite the fact that he is already married), Hendrik gets tricked into gambling more than he owns and is forced to sign a contract to let Ludolf marry Francesca as soon as the obligatory 6 months of mourning for his wife is over.
However, Francesca is interested in painting (and later in a man named Pieter) and is committed to studying with Johannes Vermeer for three years before she will marry anyone. Aletta is also interested in being a painter. Sybella is more interested in marrying well and being rich. Lots of intrigue because of the rising of the Prince of Orange over the king of France, who wants Holland evolves between all of the characters.

This story is led by a fictional character, Francesca. Through her a reader gets to experience the 17th century Amsterdam and its rich history, known for great artists and tulips.

As Francesca grows up listening to her father’s stories about famous artists of Florence, she learns to appreciate art herself. With her family being acquainted with Rembrandt’s family, a reader gets to know briefly the great artist and his struggles as well.

After the death of her mother, at the age of 13, Francesca takes over the responsibility of the household and her painting lessons vanish with the grief of her father. But one day a young man appears at their door to deliver tulip bulbs. It is Peter, proud horticultural business owner. Shortly after her father’s art dealer arranges for her apprenticeship with Vermeer in Delft. Meanwhile, Francesca’s life starts to take a different turn until a new patron for her father’s paintings enters the scene. Ludolf is a scheming and very unlikable character.

As Francesca enters her apprenticeship, a reader gets to know the famous artist Vermeer and his family. Also, the conflict between Louis XIV of France and Prince of Orange is weaved into the story.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and I’m getting to like the style of writing of this author. This is the second book I’ve read by her. But I gave this book 4 stars due to the very one unlikable character, who spoiled the story for me at some point to a point that I almost put the book away. But I’m glad I didn’t.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get through this book as I truly enjoyed it. Having been to Amsterdam I felt that she brought the city and it's inhabitants to life. While I wasn't there in the 1600s, it seemed that the language and the settings that she used made it really feel like I was there in a time gone by.

As for the characters, I enjoyed the difference between the sisters and the color that they brought to the story by those differences. Each sister's attributes gave important characteristics to the story line that help meld everything together.

Jan Vermeer also played a role in this novel and as always, I love when authors pull real historical characters into the plot. With an artist, naming the paintings done at the time allows me to look them up and experience the story with an understanding of what that painter accomplished. In this book, she pull many of his famous paintings into the plot and seeing them made it more real.

I picked this up to satisfy a prompt for a book challenge and I absolutely loved it! I had never heard of this book or the author, but I am sure to check out her other books. I enjoyed getting to know each character and their relationships with each other and how they intersected. It was a colorful time period and I did not know much about how masters and the guild worked in the art world, so I will look more into that. I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes historical fiction.