I have finally done it, I have finally read a Karen Swan book. I am not sure what has taken me so long. However, a big thank you to one of my bookstagram buddies for agreeing to a buddy read with me, and encouraging me to pick this book up.
I think, if I judged this book by its cover, which is a bad habit I admit I have, I would have assumed that this was a cheesy romance story with a bit of a Christmas theme. (And I may have worked out that it was set in Copenhagen, haha). This book is so much more than its cover suggests – and, dare I say it, I may try to read some more books by Karen Swan.
I loved that this book had a wonderful mystery story woven into it, too, that, to me, made the romance element secondary, rather than the being the focus of the story. I absolutely loved that Darcy had to use her art historian skills to be a detective to find out the identity of the woman in the portrait that had been hidden behind another famous painting. This really sucked me in, as I wanted to know who it was just as much as Darcy did – and what it had to do with Max. I did work out a little of the connection, but not the full picture (pardon the pun), and I really enjoyed following Darcy as she worked it out.
I do not want to give too much of the plot away, as I like my posts to be spoiler-free. But there are some of the elements that you would expect from a classic romance novel: the apparently unavailable man and the series of unfortunate events (or fortunate events, depending on your point of view) that seem to keep throwing our central characters together.
It is also a book that makes a good buddy read, as you have so many moments where you want to share what you think, gossip about the secrets that have been revealed, and share your predictions about what is going to happen next. And they are definitely the best kind of buddy-read books.
If you have read a Karen Swan book, please let me know – as I would love to know which other ones are worth a read to spark that Christmas spirit this year.