Blog Tour: The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby – Ellery Lloyd

Some women can’t be erased from history…

A story about love and madness, of obsession and revenge.

Paris, 1938: a mysterious studio fire kills runaway heiress artist Juliette Willoughby and destroys her surrealist masterpiece Self Portrait as Sphinx.

Cambridge, 1991: two art history students make a discovery that threatens to expose the Willoughby family and will change the course of their lives forever.

Dubai, present day: an art dealer is accused of murdering his oldest friend just as the Willoughby secrets are about to be uncovered.

Three suspicious deaths over the course of a century.

Is the key to unlocking them all hidden in Juliette Willoughby’s lost masterpiece?

Ellery Lloyd is the pseudonym for London-based husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos.
Collette is a journalist and editor, the former content director of Elle (UK) and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and the Sunday Times.
Paul is the author of two previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is the program director for English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Surrey.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this intriguing time slip mystery. It’s clever and entertaining with a great plot twist that I didn’t see coming (although I had my suspicions!)

When university students Caroline and Patrick stumble across a painting long thought destroyed at the artist’s family home, they make some rather crazy decisions that change everything.

Juliette Willoughby was a surrealist painter, her one known art work destroyed in a fire that killed her and her lover. But is that really what happened?

Moving between Juliette’s time in Paris, Caroline and Patrick’s past and present, slowly the mystery of the painting, and the story it tells, is revealed. It’s shocking and tragic stuff, with twists and turns that change how the reader sees the various characters and the Willoughby family’s secrets are revealed.

Absolutely brilliant stuff from one of my favourite writing duos. I couldn’t put it down (apologies to the person who rang me mid read and got sent to voicemail).

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.