Stolen beauty : a novel / Laurie Lico Albanese.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A powerful and important tale of love and war, art and family...I was transported." --Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author

"Albanese artfully weaves Adele's story with Maria's harrowing life under the Nazis, but it's hard to read Stolen Beauty without seeing ugly echoes in today's headlines. Seven decades after World War II, have we learned nothing?" -- USA TODAY

From the dawn of the twentieth century to the devastation of World War II, this exhilarating novel of love, war, art, and family gives voice to two extraordinary women and brings to life the true story behind the creation and near destruction of Gustav Klimt's most remarkable paintings.

In the dazzling glitter of 1900 Vienna, Adele Bloch-Bauer--young, beautiful, brilliant, and Jewish--meets painter Gustav Klimt. Wealthy in everything but freedom, Adele embraces Klimt's renegade genius as the two awaken to the erotic possibilities on the canvas and beyond. Though they enjoy a life where sex and art are just beginning to break through the façade of conventional society, the city is also exhibiting a disturbing increase in anti-Semitism, as political hatred foments in the shadows of Adele's coffee house afternoons and cultural salons.

Nearly forty years later, Adele's niece Maria Altmann is a newlywed when the Nazis invade Austria--and overnight, her beloved Vienna becomes a war zone. When her husband is arrested and her family is forced out of their home, Maria must summon the courage and resilience that is her aunt's legacy if she is to survive and keep her family--and their history--alive.

Will Maria and her family escape the grip of Nazis' grip? And what will become of the paintings that her aunt nearly sacrificed everything for?

Impeccably researched and a "must-read for fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and Paula McLain's Circling the Sun" (Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Stolen Beauty intertwines the tales of two remarkable women across more than a hundred years. It juxtaposes passion and discovery against hatred and despair, and shines a light on our ability to love, to destroy, and above all, to endure.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Stolen Beauty MARIA 1938 I was a love-struck newlywed when Hitler came to Austria. Outside, the Ringstrasse was streaming with cars, trams, and pedestrians in belted trench coats. Inside, we were waltzing and drinking French champagne. My dear friend Lily had just become engaged to a Catholic man, and the glittering ballroom was in full swing. Music was playing--it was Schubert--and men in bow ties were circulating with trays of crab cakes and miniature mushroom tortes. Someone toasted the happy couple. There was crystal, and dresses the colors of hyacinths and tulips. The dance floor was a blur of pastels. It was a long time ago, but I can still see everything clearly. I was wearing violet perfume, and dusk was approaching. Fritz moved like a panther in his tuxedo as he crossed the room toward me. My mother was wearing a shimmering gray dress, and my father was holding his bow over the cello strings when someone shouted, "The chancellor is making a speech." Aunt Adele was long in her grave, but I saw my uncle Ferdinand put out a hand to steady himself near the cocktail bar. "Schuschnigg is on the radio," the man shouted again in an angry voice. "Silence, everyone." The violinists ripped their bows from the strings, and our host turned up the volume on the radio. The chancellor's voice rang across the room just as Fritz reached my side. Every bit of my husband's childhood in the Jewish ghetto had been polished away by then, replaced by elegant manners, a starched white shirt, and a clear, operatic baritone. He put his arm around my shoulder and his ruby cuff link brushed my cheek, a cool spot in the warm room. "Men and women of Austria: this day has placed before us a serious and decisive situation," Chancellor von Schuschnigg said. He took a choked breath that we could hear through the radio waves. Men I'd known since I was a girl turned pale. They lowered their champagne flutes and balled up their cocktail napkins. Lily wilted against her father's thin frame. Someone tipped over a glass, and it shattered. The chancellor said that Hitler's army was at our borders, and for one more second I believed our small country was about to go to war. I thought we would fight the Germans, and that we could win. "We have decided to order the troops to offer no resistance," the chancellor said. "So I take leave of the Austrian people with a German word of farewell uttered from the depth of my heart--God protect Austria." A strange sound came from my husband's throat. I saw my mother mouth my father's name--Gustav--and my father mouth hers--Thedy--in a single moment that seared itself into my mind like a photograph. A woman fainted, and sirens began to wail in the streets outside. I saw Uncle Ferdinand waving in my direction, but my parents circled around us saying Secure your money. Secure your jewels. Go home. Lock your doors. Get your passports. Get out and then Fritz and I were pouring outside into the fading evening with everyone else. Church bells were ringing, and hundreds of people were crowding into the streets waving Nazi flags. I had no idea there were so many Austrians just waiting for the Führer. But there they were, hordes of ordinary Gentiles who thought Hitler was right and the Jews were to blame for their problems--poverty, sadness, cold, whatever it was they were angry about, Hitler wanted them to blame us. And they did. They were smiling and laughing and waving their swastikas. They were shouting, Germany is united--long live Hitler. We all knew what had been happening to the Jews in Germany, but until that moment it had seemed a world away. If that makes us willfully ignorant or foolish and naive, then that's what we were. There's no other way to say it. Behind the wheel of our new black sedan, Fritz stared straight ahead. Men in brown uniforms marched arm in arm through the street as if they'd stepped right from the thick walls of the Ringstrasse buildings. Soldiers stood like hard marionettes with their chins thrust into the air. I wanted to ask Fritz where they'd been hiding with their pressed uniforms and shining swastika pins, but when I saw tears on my husband's face I bit the inside of my cheek and swallowed my words. By the time we reached the Altmann Textiles factory grounds, where we lived in our newlywed apartment, Fritz had composed himself and looked as much like the vice president of the business as he could manage. "Four men were here asking for you," the gateman said. Otto was a strong man with a clean, square jawline and two lovely children. He secured the padlock behind us, and for the first time in my life it occurred to me that I was locked inside the gates. "They wanted to see the man who runs the factory." "What did you tell them?" Fritz asked. "I said Bernhard Altmann is away on business, and Fritz Altmann is here in Austria." "What did they say?" Otto blanched. "They said, 'There is no Austria anymore.' " Inside the apartment we bolted the door, turned off the lights, and crawled under the blankets. We'd been married only four months; I was twenty-two and Fritz was thirty, but we held each other like frightened children. "You'll leave right away," Fritz whispered. "Tomorrow, if it's possible. You go with Uncle Ferdinand, and I'll join you as soon as I can." My uncle Ferdinand and Fritz's brother Bernhard had both tried to warn us about Hitler, but their fears had seemed hazy and improbable and we'd listened the way most of Austria had listened: with one hand on the radio dial, searching for music and entertainment. "I'm not leaving without you," I said. "We'll wait until your passport is renewed." I had a valid passport, but Fritz's had expired after our honeymoon. We'd filled out the paperwork, filed for a renewal, and forgotten about it. That had been a month ago. "I'm not going to get a passport now," Fritz said. Lights from the factory grounds shone through our bedroom window, illuminating his face in zigzagged shadows. "The Nazis aren't going to give me one. You go first, and I'll come as soon as I can." "Go where?" I asked. "I don't want to go anywhere without you." "Go with your uncle to Jungfer Brezan," he said. "That's where he said he would go if Hitler came. Czechoslovakia will be safe." Only then did I remember my uncle waving to me on the dance floor. "I'll call Uncle Ferdinand in the morning," I said. "He'll make sure we can get out together." I pressed my cheek against Fritz's, and recalled the faint cinnamon of his aftershave on the night we'd met. There had been music and men in tuxedos that night, too--a cool breeze coming through an open window at the Lawyers' Ball, and a line of women holding their dance cards and waiting for the second waltz. "Just look at him," I'd breathed to Lily when Fritz walked by. He'd moved as I thought a lover might move when he wanted a woman, as if there was velvet under his feet. And there was the cinnamon scent, like warm bread and breakfast in bed, lingering in his wake. "That's Fritz Altmann," Lily had whispered. "He's an amateur opera singer and a real charmer. I admit he's a looker, but don't waste your time on him--he's crazy about a married woman." I might have heeded my friend's warning if Fritz hadn't climbed onto the music stage just then and silenced the room with Schubert's aching love song: You are peace, the gentle peace--you are longing, and what stills it. Maybe he was a playboy, but his voice had the warmth of a roaring fire. He sang about longing, pleasure, and pain. He sang as if he wanted a home, and that very night I'd made one for him inside myself. I wouldn't leave Austria or Vienna without him. To even think of it was terrifying. I was swallowing a bite of dry toast the next morning when a delivery boy in a blue hat hammered at the kitchen door. The sky was flat as Fritz gave the boy a silver coin and read the cable from his brother. Safe in Paris. Secure the books. Come immediately or await my instructions. Stop. Bernhard. "Of course," Fritz said in a tight voice. "I have to secure the ledgers." The newspaper was unopened on our table, with a photograph of Hitler's motorcade crossing the Danube River above a boxed notice that read: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY Jews must report all property, holdings, and cash to the Central Offices of the Reich. Those failing to cooperate will be subject to seizure and imprisonment. "I'm calling Uncle Ferdinand," I said. I hit the telephone receiver once, then twice. The line was dead, and that gave me a new sense of urgency. "I'm going over there. He might already have a passport and papers for you." "You can't go out there," Fritz said. "We have no idea what's happening in the streets." I buttoned up my coat and pulled on my scarf and gloves. My resolve was a metronome clacking inside me: I can't leave without you, I won't leave without you, I can't leave without you, I won't leave without you. "You get the ledgers. I'll see my uncle, and then I'm going to check on my parents," I said. "I'll be home in three hours, maybe less." The Altmann Textiles factory was set on four acres in Vienna's Margareten District, southwest of the city center. The buildings were yellow and whitewashed brick connected by a maze of smooth pathways. There was a modern cafeteria where everyone ate lunch together, and Fritz and Bernhard knew each of their three hundred employees by name. Fritz walked me to the front gate, when we found Otto still on duty at the guardhouse. "Where's the morning man?" Fritz asked. The workers usually began arriving before eight in the morning, but that day the grounds were still empty. "He didn't show up," Otto said with a shrug. He looked at my sturdy shoes. "Frau Altmann, the streets are dangerous. I hope you're not going out there." "Wait," Fritz said. "I'll go with you later." "I'm going now." I pressed my face against his. "You take care of the books." Outside the gates, our street was deserted and the houses silent. Shades pulled low across dark drawing room windows seemed to flutter and blink as I walked away from home. I was much more frightened than I'd let on to Fritz. At the tram stop I kept my eyes on the ground and pulled my collar up around my face. I tried not to think of anything. I tried only to breathe and stay calm. There was no ticket taker on the tram. The seats were full of silent workmen and servants in white starched uniforms. I shoved my ticket into my pocket and held on to a leather strap as the rail rolled beneath me. As we rounded the Mariahilf District, there was an angry red Nazi banner hanging from a tall building. We all turned to look, and the car buzzed with something that seemed to hang between anticipation and terror. At the stop near the Naschmarkt, a big man in a black uniform stepped onto the streetcar and shouted, Heil Hitler. The entire car saluted back, but I hesitated. The man barked again, Heil Hitler, and stared until I put up my arm and mouthed the words. As I did, I saw the Secession gallery slide by on my left. Soldiers stood in a line across the museum steps, unfurling a red banner that covered the slogan that had been there all my life. I struggled to recall the words, but they slid away as quickly as the golden dome slid from view. The next stop was Karlsplatz, where the Church of St. Charles anchored the square. I got off without looking back. The church doors were flung open, the bells were ringing, and there was a crowd of people in front of the fountain. I turned the other way, clutched my handbag to my side, and tried not to run through the streets. My uncle's house was on Elisabethstrasse, overlooking Schiller Park. As I rounded a stand of naked shrubs, I nearly tripped over a line of old women on their knees. The women were dressed in fur coats and patent leather boots, and they were scrubbing the sidewalks with toothbrushes. I lost my footing and came to a full stop, nearly retching in the street. "If you do a good job, filthy Jew, maybe I'll let you keep that fat diamond ring," a soldier barked. He butted a woman with his rifle, and I felt a sharp pain in my jaw, as if he'd struck me, too. The woman cried out, and he struck her again. I scanned the old faces, praying I wouldn't see anyone I knew. "Join us, fräulein," a soldier leered at me. Another one laughed, and I thought I might faint. "We can use a pretty young one like you." I fled from the park, hurried up the steps at 18 Elisabethstrasse and banged on the door. "Uncle Ferdinand?" I called first for my uncle, then for his butler. "Georg? Are you in there? It's Maria--it's me, please open the door." A gunshot rang out in the park behind me, and my knees went weak. The door opened and my uncle's cook was standing in her white uniform, a dish towel over her shoulder. I was prepared to throw myself into her arms, but she looked at me with a cool eye. "Your uncle isn't here," Brigitte said. "He left before dawn. He's probably across the border by now." "Left?" I asked numbly. It had not occurred to me that my uncle might leave without us. "Without a word to anyone." Brigitte's mouth twisted. "Georg saw him pack his papers and lock up the safe. He's probably gone to Jungfer Brezan." "Did he leave anything for me?" I asked. "A package or an envelope?" She shrugged. "I'd like to check his study." Even to my ears, it was clear the words were a plea. "Suit yourself," she said, and stepped aside. The grand palais was silent. The furniture seemed to cast long shadows across the parlor, and the grandfather clock on the landing kept time like ticking dynamite. Upstairs, my uncle's desk was impossibly tidy. I tried the desk drawers, but they were locked. I looked under the radio and the ink blotter and ran my hand along the clean bookshelves. There wasn't even a layer of dust. I could smell my uncle's cigars, but very quickly it was clear that he'd left nothing for me. My last chance was Aunt Adele's sitting room, where her golden portrait hung. The room was a shrine to my aunt, filled with her favorite paintings and books. The curtains were drawn, and the air inside was stale. Her portrait was filled with gold and silver baubles and strange symbols I'd never been able to puzzle out. I'd often had coffee and cake in that room with my uncle, nibbling on sweets while he talked about the wife who'd died when I was only nine. "She was celebrated throughout Europe and the empire. One day that legacy will belong to you, Maria," my uncle had said. He'd leaned over and brushed my cheek. "You're the daughter we never had. The daughter she longed for." Outside the palais a woman screamed, and gunshots followed. I pushed aside thick curtains and saw two women lying in pools of blood. My knees buckled, and for a moment my eyes went black. An engine roared, a horn blared, and there was the sound of dogs' frenzied barking. I pulled away from the window and grabbed for Adele's letter opener in a panic. I felt sure there was something hidden in the room for me--perhaps behind the portrait or slipped into a picture frame. Another shot rang out, and a jeep screeched to a stop outside. I heard heavy boots on the landing, and loud knocking. Men barked my uncle's name, and blood pounded in my ears like a loud siren. "Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer? We're here for Herr Bloch-Bauer." "He's gone," I heard the cook say calmly. "But his niece Maria Altmann is upstairs in the dead wife's sitting room." Excerpted from Stolen Beauty: A Novel by Laurie Lico Albanese All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Maria Altmann was a "love-struck newlywed" when Adolf Hitler invaded Austria, and with her opening sentence, Albanese (The Miracles of Prato) draws readers into a world of glamour, art, intrigue, power and fear. Maria and opera singer husband Fritz soon learn their money and talent are of little use to the Third Reich, especially with Jewish blood in the family. Even more compelling is the interwoven story of Maria's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, muse to artist Gustav Klimt and a woman ahead of her time in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Klimt's commissioned gold-leaf portrait of Adele is of high interest to the Nazis and will inspire Maria to find inner strength to survive the war and save her family's legacy. -VERDICT In this complex yet utterly readable novel, historical characters are brought to life against the setting of a city on the verge of artistic greatness and societal collapse. Albanese treats thorny moral issues with clarity and depth. Fans of Philippa Gregory, Tracy Chevalier, and those who enjoyed the film Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren won't be able to put it down.-Christine Barth, Scott Cty. Lib. Syst., IA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

In fin de siècle Vienna, unconventional possibilities abound, intellectually and romantically, when wealthy, beautiful, Jewish Adele Bloch-Bauer meets painter Gustav Klimt. In an alternating 1930s story line, the brutality of the Anschluss shatters the idyllic existence of Maria Altmann, Adele's niece. The titular stolen beauty is Klimt's famous portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, looted by the Nazis. Facing uncertainty and loss, the women are connected through the painting. The novel's focal points are the characterizations of the two women, one born strong and the other struggling to be. Unlike similar women's war fiction (e.g., Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale, 2015), this novel profits from the added emotional level of this being, essentially, a true story. The real Maria Altmann was dauntless in restoring to her family that which had been taken from them; the historical Adele Bloch-Bauer was exceptional as the queen of Vienna salon society. Best read with a tablet or computer handy to study the paintings, Albanese's novel will appeal to readers interested in such themes as love, self-discovery, and women's empowerment and to fans of the historical, art-based fiction of Susan Vreeland and Tracy Chevalier.--Latham, Bethany Copyright 2016 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Two haute bourgeois Austrian-Jewish women see their world upended by fin de sicle libertinism, the onset of the Nazi regime, and the theft of all they hold most dear.Sparking off the same source material as the film Woman in Gold (2015), Albanese conjures the voices of Adele Bloch-Bauer and her niece Maria Altmann, whose lives overlapped briefly but whose biographies are forever conjoined by a work of art. Here, as in life, handsome, clever, and rich Adele is an intellectually famished, aspiring salon hostess whose tolerant husband, an uncultured but benevolent sugar-beet magnate, indulges her interest in the philosophical debates of the day (though the novel imposes no burden on readers to wrestle with them). She eventually persuades him to commission Gustav Klimtmonk-cloaked, lupine, and a notorious seducer with multiple illegitimate childrento do her portrait. It takes him three years to complete. While conscious of ugly talk rippling through the Ringstrassea failed and embittered applicant to Vienna's Art Academy, who will one day come to power in Germany, is glimpsed briefly at one of Adele's salon meetingsAdele is forced to pull back from their potentially scandalous relationship for reasons less social than private. By turns breathless and rueful at the memory of the erstwhile affair"His gaze was intoxicating. I'm embarrassed to remember how little it took to keep me talking"Adele will take up other causes and protgs. One is her young niece Maria, whose story commences in 1938 and makes for a gritty, suspenseful counterpoint (with a few historical liberties taken) to the lip-smacking linzer torte of Adele's bildungsroman. Less worldly than her aunt (who was long dead by the time Hitler comes to power), Maria is shocked when the Gestapo turns up at her home to oversee the transfer of Jewish property into Aryan hands. But she quickly readjusts her inner compass, proving wily and doughty in ways Aunt Adele would approve. Taking the lead from her husbandan amateur opera singer hooked on female adorationshe organizes their escape, not a hot-second too soon. Though given shorter shrift here than the romance/suspense plots, Maria's nervy and unprecedented campaign to seek restitution for her family's looted art collectionincluding the shimmering Klimt portrait of Adele hidden in plain sight in Vienna's most prestigious galleryprovides a satisfying coda: "The Nazis were inside my uncle's palais....If you're lucky, life teaches you to survive." Fans of romantic suspense with an art historical bent will appreciate the vigor of Albanese's reimagining of the family saga behind the masterpiece long regarded as Vienna's Mona Lisa. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Laurie Lico Albanese has published fiction, poetry, journalism, travel writing, creative nonfiction, and memoir. Her books include Blue Suburbia: Almost a Memoir , Lynelle by the Sea , and The Miracles of Prato , co-written with art historian Laura Morowitz. Laurie is married to a publishing executive and is the mother of two children. To learn more visit her at LaurieLicoAlbanese.com.