Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

I went into Girl in Hyacinth Blue, never having read Susan Vreeland, hoping to get an intriguing story that traces the origin of a secret Vermeer painting (created by Vreeland, not a real-life missing Vermeer) and delivers the beauty and blossoming vibrance of creating or connecting to art. While the opening chapters displayed an interesting premise from which to springboard — the son of a Nazi who had "acquired" the painting during World War II, and who is now a professor, divulges the painting's story to a colleague — the structure of the novel couldn't support the lightweight exploration that makes it easy to see how this one was made into a Hallmark TV Movie.

Told in vignettes, the story structure does provide a bit of interest in that each subsequent point-of-view switch sets up the previous storyline, as we follow the painting backwards through time. However, this provided very little by way of either intrigue or art appreciation, and I struggled to stay engaged. They were largely forgettable in different ways. I'd hoped to find the creation of the art to be worth the wait, but this is not Chevalier's Vermeer, and everything ended up being too light and fluffy, too twee, for the depth I wanted.

P.S. Honestly, the most interesting element about this whole experience to me is actually the imitation Vermeer painting created for the tv movie by artist Jonathan Janson. Read about the experience and see Janson's painting HERE.