THE TRANSFIXING TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN WHO DEFIED ALL ODDS TO CHOOSE HER OWN DESTINY "This life of the astonishing Belle Greene, the director of the Morgan Library who took the decision to "pass" as white in New York's Gilded Age, is a breathtaking and poignant work of social history."-Rebecca Fraser, author of Charlotte Bronte "Erudite, sharp, and worldly, she hid an incredible secret... The story told with panache by Alexandra Lapierre of one of the first women of the 20th century to have had the madness, and above all the courage, to choose her own destiny."-ELLE New York in the 1900s. A young girl, fascinated by rare books, defies the odds and climbs all the ranks. She becomes the director of the fabulous library of the magnate J. P. Morgan and the darling of the international aristocracy, under the false name of Belle da Costa Greene. Belle Greene to close friends. But the flamboyant collector who turns heads and reigns over the world of bibliophiles hides a terrible secret for the violently racist America of her time. Although she looks white, she is actually African American and, moreover, the daughter of a famous black activist who sees her desire to hide her origins as a betrayal. It is this drama of a being torn between history and a woman's choice to belong to the society which oppresses her people that Alexandra Lapierre recounts. The fruit of three years of investigation, this novel retraces the victories and heartbreaks of a woman full of life, as free as she is determined, whose astonishing daring echoes today's battles.

Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most fascinating artists in history. Apprenticed at an early age to her father, the seventeenth-century painter Orazio Gentileschi, she rapidly became more famous than he was, for her rich, dramatic canvases. But her fame was tarnished by scandal. At the age of seventeen, she was violently raped by Agostino Tassi, an artist friend of Orazio's. On discovering Tassi's betrayal, Orazio took the case to court and there followed, in 1612, eight months of humiliation for Artemisia as the inhabitants of Rome's colourful artist's quarter came to give evidence. Their testimony - frank, partial, often cruel - in this first rape trial ever to be fully documented, made Artemisia and her father notorious.

An international best-seller, Alexandra Lapierre's Artemisia sweeps us through the streets once frequented by Caravaggio, Velasquez, and Van Dyck and into the studios of artists who used their daggers as efficiently as their brushes.

Born in the early 1600s when artists were the celebrities of the day, Artemisia was apprenticed to her father, the artist Orazio Gentileschi, at an early age. Raped by his partner Agostino Tassi at seventeen, the Gentileschi name was dragged through scandal for Artemisia refused, even when tortured, to deny that she had been raped. Indeed, she went farther: she dared to plead her case in court. Artemisia is the story of a powerful love/hate relationship between master and pupil, father and daughter, and a talent that overturned the prejudices of the day, winning commissions from wealthy patrons, nobles, and kings. Lapierre brings Artemisia Gentileschi to vivid life as she tells of the emotional struggles of the most fascinating and controversial artist of her time.