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Stunning . . . A beautifully written tale of art, love and an obsession triggered by both.
Associated Press

The Swan Thieves

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe has a perfectly ordered life--solitary, perhaps, but full of devotion to his profession and the painting hobby he loves. This order is destroyed when renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient. In response, Marlowe finds himself going beyond his own legal and ethical boundaries to understand the secret that torments this genius, a journey that will lead him into the lives of the women closest to Robert Oliver and toward a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Ranging from American museums to the coast of Normandy, from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth, from young love to last love, THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, the losses of history, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

A stirring novel about art, love, and mental illness.... The Swan Thieves is fascinating and culturally informative.... There are many things to admire. As she did in The Historian, Kostova has created a masterful tale of overpowering obsession.... Her painterly descriptions of artwork are luscious... and the nineteenth-century love story which runs parallel to Oliver’s story is exquisitely told.
— Carol Memmott, USA Today