Leonora in the Morning Light: A Novel

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For fans of Amy Blooms White Houses and Colm Tibns The Master, a page-turning novel about Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington and the art, drama, and romance that defined her coming-of-age during World War II.

London, 1937: Leonora Carrington is a twenty-year-old on the cusp of independence, discovering her own creative powers as a painter, when she falls into a turbulent, passionate love affair with Max Ernst, a married artist twenty-six years older. Determined to break free from her familys upper-class expectations, she follows him to Paris, where she is thrust into the vibrant, revolutionary world of studios and cafes, where rising visionaries of the Surrealist movement, like Andre Breton, Pablo Picasso, Lee Miller, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali, are challenging conventional approaches to art and life. Inspired by their freedom, Leonora begins to experiment with her own work, translating vivid stories of her youth onto canvas and gaining recognition under her own nameuntil, suddenly, the shadow of war and occupation begins to spread over Europe, and headlines emerge denouncing Max and his circle as degenerates.

Forced to flee France, Max and Leonora are separated, but both begin remarkable journeys that will shape them as artists and individuals. On the run from an internment camp, Max seeks the aid of Peggy Guggenheim, who is helping artists escape from the Nazis, while Leonora, once trapped in a Spanish asylum, begins to claim her identity and unleash the quiet, inner power that will eventually make her one of the most influential women of our time.

Based on true events and historical figures, Leonora in the Morning Light is an unforgettable story of love, art, and destiny that restores a twentieth-century heroine to her rightful place.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR LEONORA IN THE MORNING LIGHT

Afascinating read that offers insights into the dreamlike work of the artist. . . Michaela Carters rich prose pulled me in, and her haunting portrait of Leonora Carrington kept me turning pages.Nancy Horan, New York Times bestselling author of Under the Wide and Starry Sky and Loving Frank

Gorgeouslywritten, meticulously researched. . . . Michaela Carters poetic style and vivid prose swept me up into this fascinating and beautifully woven story of love and war and art.Jillian Cantor, USA Today bestselling author ofIn Another TimeandHalf Life

Michaela Carter invokes the bohemian intrigues of artistic pre-WWII Paris, and the terrors that ensued, in her riveting story of Leonora Carringtons tumultuous affair with celebrated painter, Max Ernst. . . . Vivid and colorful as her canvases, this novel depicts the conflicted heart of an artist, and a survivor who refused to admit defeat."C.W. Gortner, internationally bestselling authorofMademoiselle Chane

"Michaela Carter's training as a poet and painter shines through from the first page of this vivid, gorgeous novel based on the lives of Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst. Told with all the wild magic and mystery of the Surrealists themselves, Leonora in the Morning Light fearlessly illuminates the life and work of a formidable female artist."Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light

An extraordinarily researched historical novel about the romanceand heartbreakshared by Surrealists Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst at the dawn of WWII,Leonora in the Morning Lightis both imaginative and riveting. With little prior knowledge of Carrington and her work, I became consumed by her story, as portrayed in Michaela Carters poetic, captivating narrative.Cynthia Swanson,New York Timesbestselling author ofThe BooksellerandThe Glass Forest

Michaela Carter's brilliant new novel is a fully imagined portrait of the sexual and artistic coming of age of a Great Woman. Leonora in the Morning Light is breathtaking and bold, formidably well researched and entrancingly beautiful."Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man and The Last Cruise

Author Bio

Michaela Carter is a writer, painter, and an award-winning poet. Her novelFurther Out Than You Thoughtwas an Arizona Republic Recommends and AZ Centrals Best critics pick for 2014. Her poetry won the Poetry Society of America, Los Angeles, New Poets Prize, has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She is the cofounder of the independent bookstore The Peregrine Book Company, where she works as a buyer. She lives in Prescott, Arizona, with her husband and two dogs, and she can be visited on the web at MichaelaCarter.com.