A RARE AND CURIOUS GIFT

The quest to possess beauty drives this debut historical novel, which borrows from the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a gifted painter of the Italian Renaissance who was one of the first women to gain recognition as an artist in her own right. Holdstock's heroine is Sofonisba, daughter of the painter Orazio Fabroni. At 17, Sofonisba is taking on more and more of her father's work, attempting to cultivate her own talent. Her passions are aroused by the scruffy, swashbuckling sculptor Matteo Tassi, whose wandering and carefree ways suit her independent nature. When an exotic slave with freakish, piebald skin enters the lives of these artists, their fascination with the slave as an object of both beauty and repulsion sets off a spiraling chain of events that leads many to believe the girl is a curse upon the town. The book's exploration of passion, jealousy and ambition is underlaid by riveting, macabre descriptions of human dissections witnessed by its artist protagonists. Holdstock's vivid, unflinching tale doesn't sugarcoat the casual brutality of the period, and is punctuated by startling moments of beauty. (Feb.)

Forecast: Holdstock's novel may suffer from following on the heels of Susan Vreeland's The Passion of Artemisia (2001). It holds its own, however, and should appeal to readers looking for a darker version of the female-centered historical fiction patented by Vreeland and Chevalier.