• The Lover's Portrait: An Art Mystery

  • The Adventures of Zelda Richardson, Volume 2
  • By: Jennifer S. Alderson
  • Narrated by: Carol Purdom
  • Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (81 ratings)

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The Lover's Portrait: An Art Mystery  By  cover art

The Lover's Portrait: An Art Mystery

By: Jennifer S. Alderson
Narrated by: Carol Purdom
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Publisher's summary

Missing masterpieces, Nazi blackmailers, and a pesky amateur sleuth.

When a Dutch art dealer hides the stock from his gallery - rather than turn it over to his Nazi blackmailer - he pays with his life, leaving a treasure trove of modern masterpieces buried somewhere in Amsterdam, presumably lost forever. That is, until American art history student Zelda Richardson sticks her nose in.

After studying for a year in the Netherlands, Zelda scores an internship at the prestigious Amsterdam Museum, where she works on an exhibition of paintings and sculptures once stolen by the Nazis, lying unclaimed in Dutch museum depots almost seventy years later. When two women claim the same portrait of a young girl entitled Irises, Zelda is tasked with investigating the painting's history and soon finds evidence that one of the two women must be lying about her past. Before she can figure out which one it is and why, Zelda learns about the Dutch art dealer's concealed collection. And that Irises is the key to finding it all.

Her discoveries make her a target of someone willing to steal - and even kill - to find the missing paintings. As the list of suspects grows, Zelda realizes she has to track down the lost collection and unmask a killer if she wants to survive.

  • Chill with a Book's January 2018 Book of the Month
  • One of TripFiction’s 10 Favorite Books set in Amsterdam
  • One of The Displaced Nation's Top 36 Expat Fiction Picks of 2016
  • Number 14 in the BookLife Prize for Fiction 2016, Mystery category
  • Silver Cup Winner of Rosie's Book Review Team Awards 2017 in the Mystery category

The Lover’s Portrait is the perfect novel for those who love art, history, and mystery. The Adventures of Zelda Richardson series are stand-alone novels and can be listened to in any order.

©2016 Jennifer S. Alderson (P)2017 Jennifer S. Alderson

What listeners say about The Lover's Portrait: An Art Mystery

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loving Art through good times and bad.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes....... its combination of Art,History,Mystery and a good thriller make it a compelling
book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Zelda is growing and learning about Art the great suffering of being Jewish during
World War 2 and becoming more of the person she soon will become.

Which scene was your favorite?

N/A

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

History can come home to haunt you.

Any additional comments?

This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • MT
  • 12-28-20

good story

I liked the story a lot, but felt kind of lukewarm regarding the main character. She's very young and spends a lot of time dealing with the issues and emotions of that age. It felt somewhat unnecessary in an otherwise interesting book.

The story itself and, overall, the way it's written, I really enjoyed. The setting in The Netherlands is also engaging.

The narrator.... she actually reads very well. She's easy to understand and articulate. Unfortunately the only accent she does is American southern, and she uses it a lot with Dutch characters. ((How did the director or producer not correct that?????) If she had stuck to reading without giving the Dutch characters American Southern accents, it would have been fine.

I'm still glad I listened to the book, but will probably read the next in the series. 🙂

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Listener received this title free

Fantastic!

international-crime-and-mystery, cultural-exploration, world-war-2, art, art-theft, historical-places-events, historical-research, netherlands, mystery, thriller, amateur-sleuth, intrigue, greed, fraud

The nazis weren't the only art thieves in the twentieth century, and this excellent mystery gives a nod to the fact that covert theft continues to this day. In an attempt to return stolen artwork to rightful owners, the museum has launched an internet presence. This brings in the good, the bad, and the ugly. Unknown to the museum board, one of their employees is as dishonest as can be and stops at nothing to achieve his own personal agenda. Zelda is only an unpaid intern but she becomes enmeshed in discovering the charade on behalf of a legitimate claimant. Excellent suspense and engaging characters.
Carol Purdom performs the narration beautifully and gives voice to all the characters by enhancing their personalities
I won this free audiobook in a Giveaway!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
Listener received this title free

Historical Mystery of WWII Era Missing Art

Alderson has done an excellent job putting together a captivating mystery involving a search for missing art from Nazi occupied WWII era Amsterdam. The story slides back and forth between current day and the 1940's to explain events as they happened, giving back story and laying out clues. I like that in a story when it's done well - and it is here. Ms. Alderson uses Amsterdam as her backdrop and Art History as part of the primary subject matter in the book, both topics on which she is well versed. She has a compelling narrative and a likeable heroine. Historical novels are my go to genre and I love a good mystery too so this was right up my alley. I will have to say that the narration by Ms Purdom of Rita Brouwer and Karen O Neil - 2 women who were supposed to be of mature years and left the Netherlands when they were small girls - were narrated with horrible twangy American accents. It was incredibly annoying. Accents aside, the book was a good listen and worth your time. I very much enjoyed it. *I was given a review copy in return for my honest review*

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
Listener received this title free

Good Historical Mystery

I received a free copy of this book upon my request and the following review is unbiased.

The narrator did a good job overall, however the cracking southern accent grated on my nerves at times.

I loved the story, setting, and history, but the cliches and unnecessary dialogue tags with adverbs made me want to scream “why?” A good editor would have raised the quality of the writing to this otherwise great story idea.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The main actor seems to be un-naturally stupid

The story in general would be interesting but the main actor seems to be un-naturally stupid, acting against any normal human behavior, and hard in comprehending simple connections what makes it hard to listen to.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

No

I'm glad that I didn't pay for this book. The characters didn't appeal to me and I stopped caring about what happened to them.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting history

Wrong reader. All the characters, even the Dutch people, sounded as though they came from Missouri, while only one character did.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
Listener received this title free

The Lovers portrait

I liked this book for the most part. The story was good.The rudeness of the man in charge would have sent me to another gig. Stolen art from Nazi days are being catalogged and hopefully made easy to research on a website in Amsterdam. They hire a novice to fix English Grammer,yet she manages so much more, to little appreciation. Narration was stale aside from 'Hoove?" screaming. I understand the differences in culture and manners.Maybe that is what Carol Purdon was trying to display.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Poorly written

Labored, redundant writing badly in need of editing. Painful to listen to. A shame because the bones of the story are fantastic.

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