Color of Light by Helen Maryles Shankman

Author: Helen Maryles Shankman
Publisher: Stony Creek Press
Date of publication: October 2013

 NEW YORK CITY, 1992. At the American Academy of Classical Art, popular opinion has it that the school’s handsome and mysterious founder, Raphael Sinclair, is a vampire. It is a rumor Rafe does nothing to dispel.

Scholarship student Tessa Moss has long dreamed of the chance to study at Rafe’s Academy. But she is floundering amidst the ups and downs of a relationship with egotistical art star Lucian Swain.

Then, one of Tessa’s sketches catches Rafe’s attention: a drawing of a young woman in 1930s clothing who is covering the eyes of a child. The suitcase at her feet says Wizotsky. Sofia Wizotsky, the love of Rafe’s life, was lost during the Holocaust.

Or was she? Rafe suspects Tessa may be the key to discovering what really happened.


I think I am in the minority when it comes to this book. The Color of Light has gotten rave reviews.  Don't get me wrong, it was well written and the author's descriptive writing was wonderful.  But for me, the story was kind of boring.  First, it's a long book coming in at over 550 pages.  The story really dragged for me.  I felt like there were too many characters to keep track of.  By the time I got to the story of Sophia, I found myself really not wanting to keep going.  I did end up skimming through the rest of the book enough to get the gist of the story. I felt like it could have been shorter. I really wanted to like the story more, but it just wasn't for me.  I do think that you should give this a chance.  Check out the rest of the blog tour below to see what others are saying:

Thursday, October 31st:  Man of La Book
Monday, November 4th:  Must Read Faster
Monday, November 4th:  Shelf Pleasure - author guest post
Wednesday, November 6th:  Books Without Any Pictures
Thursday, November 7th:  Bookish Whimsy
Monday, November 11th:  Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Tuesday, November 12th:  Ageless Pages
Wednesday, November 13th:  Conceptual Reception
Thursday, November 14th:  Great Imaginations
Friday, November 15th:  Book-alicious Mama
Tuesday, November 19th:  A Fantastical Librarian
Monday, November 25th:  Sara’s Organized Chaos
Tuesday, November 26th:  From the TBR Pile
Wednesday, November 27th:  My Bookshelf
Date TBD:  A Chick Who Reads

About the author:

Originally, when Helen Maryles Shankman moved to New York, she thought she wanted to be an illustrator, to tell stories with paint.  A few years later, she discovered that what she really wanted to do was paint with The Kenyon Review, Cream City Review, Gargoyle, Grift, Danse Macabre, and JewishFiction.net. She was a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. For now she lives in New Jersey, with her husband, four kids, and a blue-eyed Australian Shepherd named Sky. Her debut novel, The Color of Light, is coming from Stony Creek Press on Halloween, 2013.
words. Her stories appear in

Follow Helen on Twitter @hmshankman

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