For fans of Amy Bloom’s White Houses and Colm Tóibín’s The Master, a page-turning novel about Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington and the art, drama, and romance that defined her coming-of-age during World War II.
London, 1937: Leonora Carrington is a twenty-year-old on the cusp of independence, discovering her own creative powers as a painter, when she falls into a turbulent, passionate love affair with Max Ernst, a married artist twenty-six years older. Determined to break free from her family’s upper-class expectations, she follows him to Paris, where she is thrust into the vibrant, revolutionary world of studios and cafes, where rising visionaries of the Surrealist movement, like Andre Breton, Pablo Picasso, Lee Miller, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali, are challenging conventional approaches to art and life. Inspired by their freedom, Leonora begins to experiment with her own work, translating vivid stories of her youth onto canvas and gaining recognition under her own name—until, suddenly, the shadow of war and occupation begins to spread over Europe, and headlines emerge denouncing Max and his circle as “degenerates.”
Forced to flee France, Max and Leonora are separated, but both begin remarkable journeys that will shape them as artists and individuals. On the run from an internment camp, Max seeks the aid of Peggy Guggenheim, who is helping artists escape from the Nazis, while Leonora, once trapped in a Spanish asylum, begins to claim her identity and unleash the quiet, inner power that will eventually make her one of the most influential women of our time.
Based on true events and historical figures, Leonora in the Morning Light is an unforgettable story of love, art, and destiny that restores a twentieth-century heroine to her rightful place.
About the Author
Michaela Carter is a writer, painter, and an award-winning poet. Her novel Further Out Than You Thought was an Indie Next Pick, an Arizona Republic Recommends, and AZ Central’s Best critic’s pick for 2014. Her poetry won the Poetry Society of America, Los Angeles, New Poet’s Prize, has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She is the cofounder of the independent bookstore The Peregrine Book Company, where she works as a buyer. She lives in Prescott, Arizona, with her husband and two dogs, and she can be visited on the web at MichaelaCarter.com. Her latest work is Leonora in the Morning Light.
Industry Reviews
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR LEONORA IN THE MORNING LIGHT
“A fascinating read that offers insights into the dreamlike work of the artist. . . Michaela Carter’s rich prose pulled me in, and her haunting portrait of Leonora Carrington kept me turning pages.” —Nancy Horan, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Wide and Starry Sky and Loving Frank
“Gorgeously written, meticulously researched. . . . Michaela Carter’s poetic style and vivid prose swept me up into this fascinating and beautifully woven story of love and war and art.” —Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time and Half Life
“Michaela Carter invokes the bohemian intrigues of artistic pre-WWII Paris, and the terrors that ensued, in her riveting story of Leonora Carrington’s tumultuous affair with celebrated painter, Max Ernst. . . . Vivid and colorful as her canvases, this novel depicts the conflicted heart of an artist, and a survivor who refused to admit defeat." —C.W. Gortner, internationally bestselling author of Mademoiselle Chanel
"Michaela Carter's training as a poet and painter shines through from the first page of this vivid, gorgeous novel based on the lives of Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst. Told with all the wild magic and mystery of the Surrealists themselves, Leonora in the Morning Light fearlessly illuminates the life and work of a formidable female artist." —Whitney Scharer, bestselling author of The Age of Light
“An extraordinarily researched historical novel about the romance—and heartbreak—shared by Surrealists Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst at the dawn of WWII, Leonora in the Morning Light is both imaginative and riveting. With little prior knowledge of Carrington and her work, I became consumed by her story, as portrayed in Michaela Carter’s poetic, captivating narrative.” —Cynthia Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Bookseller and The Glass Forest
“Michaela Carter's brilliant new novel is a fully imagined portrait of the sexual and artistic coming of age of a Great Woman. Leonora in the Morning Light is breathtaking and bold, formidably well researched and entrancingly beautiful." —Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man and The Last Cruise
“Deeply empathic. . . . Carter has written a refulgent and deeply involving historical tale of tragic lost love, determined survival, the sanctuary of art, and the evolution of a muse into an artist of powerfully provocative feminist expression.” —Booklist (Starred Review)
“A satisfying historical novel about love, art, and war. . . Carter meditates beautifully on the unique difficulties of being a woman artist." —Kirkus Reviews
