Ellis Avery's (The Teahouse Fire) The Last Nude tells the story of the love between art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka and her model Rafaela Fano. Although based on their real-life affair, which began in the late 1920s, the novel takes fictional leaps in its portrayal of a romance destined to fail and a country where, even with the First World War still fresh in people's memories, they could not foresee another war coming.
Readers meet Tamara when she picks up the beautiful, half-Jewish Rafaela in a park in Paris. The painter becomes fixated on painting the young woman, while Rafaela is just as obsessed with her feelings for Tamara. But The Last Nude is not just a love story. It is also Rafaela's memoir of regret, told predominantly from her perspective--until Avery gives voice to Tamara in the novel's final chapters. There are happy moments, but a discerning reader will know better. As peace so shortly lasts between wars, brightly burning love is eventually crushed by greed, envy and betrayal. --Sara Dobie Bauer, blogger at Wordpress