The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
By Sara Jane Loyster
When fifteen-year-old Victoria grudgingly accompanies her mother to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, she has no idea her life is about to change forever.
While there, she falls under the spell of the famous John Singer Sargent portrait The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. Drawn into the portrait’s shadowy depths, Victoria finds herself transported back in time to the world of the four troubled Boit sisters.
John Singer Sargent Self Portrait
Credit: JohnSingerSargent.org
Spanning a brief period in the lives of John Singer Sargent and the Boit family, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a coming-of-age tale that explores both the murky world of Paris in 1882 and the upheaval going on in Victoria’s own time, the early sixties, all the while pondering possible answers to the questions raised by Sargent’s most enigmatic work of art.
“The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a fascinating and magical work of art about a fascinating and magical work of art.”
-Annie Barrows, #1 NY Times best selling co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and best selling children’s author of Ivy and Bean
“Part historical fiction, part time-travel fantasy, part psychological suspense story, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a highly original coming-of-age novel whose themes include friendship, sexual identity, disability and activism. This retro #MeToo novel - or rather, #NotOnMyWatch novel-follows fifteen year-old Victoria Hubbard as she straddles two eras, the turmoil of the 1960s and the art world of the the 1880s.”
-Kate Brubeck, writer and editor