Farm Fresh Adventures: Fresh from the Bookshelf: The Painter's Daughter by Julie Klassen {Book Review}

I have several authors that I actively seek out at the library and bookstore. Julie Klassen is one of those authors. I discovered her by chance a couple years ago and fell in love immediately with her style. Naturally, it helps that she also writes in my favorite genre--inspirational historical fiction. When I had the chance to review her latest book The Painter's Daughter (released Dec 2015) for NetGalley, I naturally pounced on it and was eager to see if it was at the same level of awesome as the previous books I loved so well.

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Julie Klassen struck gold again with this latest book, The Painter's Daughter. I love how she is willing to go places other authors might not go--especially in the christian books--like
making the lead character an unwed mother during the Regency time period. She gives her characters "baggage" which makes them real--and then shows how they find their footing again and can move forward and beat the odds against them.

It is obvious that the author spent a great deal of time researching the time period and the local of the book. She really brings the countryside to life with her word pictures. It is very easy to imagine the homes that the characters inhabit with her attention to detail.

The characters themselves are very colorful and have great back stories that is carefully woven in. The lead character Sophie is sweet and gentle of spirit and it was lovely to watch her grow throughout the book, as she strove to rise above the mistakes that she had made and live a new live in God. My favorite character was the old nurse/nanny. She was so fiesty and fun. Really added a lot to the story.

The only negative thing I really have is that I remember there being a few scenes that featured details about the sensuous feelings a couple characters had for each other. It was a bit out of place and really didn't need to be so detailed. But as I said, in my opinion, this author braves ideas that some will shun in an effort to make her characters more real and identifiable. They obviously sin. And they need repentance and forgiveness. And the process brings them closer to God as they deal with their shortcomings. Many of the ones that we ourselves deal with.

This book explored what it was like in the society when unwed mothers were shunned and what their options were. This isn't the first book that Julie Klassen explored ladies who brought scandal to their family. It's something she weaves in rather regularly actually, as I can name at least 3 other of her books with this topic.

This book gets a solid 4 stars. I didn't like it as much as some of her other books, but it was still very good, I enjoyed it, and I would recommend it.