Lively, Vivid Writing in ‘Portrait of an Unseen Woman’

The Historical Novel Society praises Roberta Harold’s prose in its review of Portrait of an Unseen Woman: A Novel of Annie Shaw. “Harold’s writing is lively, especially her dialogue (‘The Sapphists don’t bite, as a rule,’ a character advises Annie), and her portrait of Belle Époque Paris is vivid.”

“Widowed during the American Civil War when her gallant young husband, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, led a heroic regiment of Black troops to their doom at Fort Wagner, Annie Shaw has spent much of the ensuing years living quietly in Paris’s insular American colony. That begins to change in 1892, when 56-year-old Annie, finally on her own after the death of her mother, decides that she wants more from Parisian life. Spurred on by a chance encounter with her husband’s worldly aunt, Annie makes her way into the artistic circles of Paris, and to a richer—and more complicated—existence. … According to Harold, little is known about Annie Shaw’s postwar life. This novel is a plausible and engaging imagining of what might have been.”

The Historical Novel Society, founded in the UK in 1997, is an international literary society devoted to the promotion and advocacy for the genre of historical fiction. Read the full review here.