The Collector’s Apprentice: A Novel

B. A. Shapiro

Oct 2018 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Xe Sands

About this audiobook

It's the summer of 1922, and nineteen-year-old Paulien Mertens finds herself in Paris-broke, disowned, and completely alone. Everyone in Belgium, including her own family, believes she stole millions in a sophisticated con game perpetrated by her then-fiance, George Everard. To protect herself from the law and the wrath of those who lost everything, she creates a new identity, a Frenchwoman named Vivienne Gregsby, and sets out to recover her father's art collection, prove her innocence-and exact revenge on George. When the eccentric and wealthy American art collector Edwin Bradley, who is based on real life museum founder Albert Barnes, offers Vivienne the perfect job, she is soon caught up in the Parisian world of post-Impressionists and expatriates-including Gertrude Stein and Henri Matisse, with whom Vivienne becomes romantically entwined. As she travels between Paris and Philadelphia, where Bradley is building an art museum, her life becomes even more complicated: George returns with unclear motives . . . and then Vivienne is arrested for Bradley's murder. B. A. Shapiro has made the historical art thriller her own. In The Collector's Apprentice, she gives us an unforgettable tale about the lengths to which people will go for their obsession, whether it be art, money, love, or vengeance.

About the author

B. A. Shapiro is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestseller The Art Forger and the bestseller The Muralist. She has taught sociology at Tufts University and creative writing at Northeastern University and lives in Boston with her husband, Dan, and their dog, Sagan. Her website is bashapirobooks.com.

Xe Sands is an award-winning narrator known for her authentic characterizations and intimate delivery. She has more than a decade of experience bringing stories to life through narration, performance, and visual art, and she has been recognized for her engaging romance narrations.