Shades of Emily

With more than a hundred years of history separating its two narrators, one a young lawyer in twenty-first-century New York, the other the famed early-twentieth-century artist Emily Carr, this magnetic novel offers a multigenerational story of love, ambition and breaking with convention.

The dark-hued painting that thirty-year-old lawyer Cassie Hastings has been commissioned to buy for millions at auction in New York comes with a note taped to the back: “To my one true and everlasting love.” The intended recipient is a mystery, but both painting and message are unquestionably from the pioneering Canadian artist Emily Carr.

Cassie’s life, troubled by an insincere fiancé and a duplicitous colleague, becomes entwined with the experiences of the renowned artist, sending echoes back and forth over a gap of more than a century. As Cassie pursues the possibility that one of her own ancestors is the time-obscured recipient of Emily’s dedication, the tale forms a kind of double helix, the two women alternating as narrator.

Displaying the attention to historical detail and psychological depth that drew widespread acclaim for The Brideship Wife and The Celestial Wife, Howard conjures a vision of the pressures and heartbreak faced by generations of ambitious women, and the strength these challenges have summoned in them.