Midnight Blue

Midnight Blue by Simone van der Vlugt introduces a young woman in 17th-century Netherlands struggling to maintain her independence while maneuvering through a patriarchal world.
 
Catrin, a widow, leaves her village under suspicious circumstances and heads for Amsterdam, which is a large, exotic place affording her the invisibility she craves. "The world is very different for women," she says in defiance, but she's confident in her ability to take care of herself in a man's world. Trying to escape her past isn't successful--a man from her village appears and knows her secrets. She fears that "one day the truth will come to light," and leaves again, moving to the smaller city of Delft to regain her anonymity.
 
There she finds work painting the new style of blue-on-white pottery. Her increasingly skilled designs and her ability to sense popular trends make her invaluable to the pottery studio and win her the respect of the men with whom she works. Yet when she thinks her life is finally settled, tragedy strikes. Is she being punished for her past? "Do you think there's such a thing as sins you have no choice to commit?... How do you know if you've been forgiven?" she asks a minister in anguish.
 
Midnight Blue, van der Vlugt's first novel published in the United States, translated by Jenny Watson, evokes a place and time not often highlighted. With cameos by Rembrandt and Vermeer, this is perfect for fans of Girl with a Pearl Earring and B.A. Shapiro. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.
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