Changes

|title=The Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal

|sort=Optickal Illusion: A very eighteenth-century scandal

|isbn=9780715651971

|website=https://www.rachelhalliburton.net/

}}

Rachel Halliburton's debut novel opens in London in January 1797. Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, is reflecting on the past year's scandal involving the Provises, father and daughter, and worries that he handled everything poorly. From the start the book's figurative language is appropriately full of colour and painterly techniques: 'He had intended to deal with them honourably, but now everyone in London was saying he had not. It was as if somebody had dropped a small amount of ivory black paint into yellow orpiment on a palette – the more he prodded and stirred the memory, the murkier it became.'

There are a lot of names and time jumps to keep up with, and the narration moves inconsistently between past and present tense. I also found some of the metaphors a bit overwritten: 'Her eyes as agitated as lightning-lit seas', 'Hobnailed boots of self-reproach stamp through her mind', and 'It was as if the coffee were a dark bitter oxygen for the nervous spark of ideas'. However, this is overall an absorbing story with lively characters and an unconventional female lead.

{{amazontext|amazon=0715651978}}

{{commenthead}}