Friday, September 14, 2018

Friday Freebie: The Collector’s Apprentice by B. A. Shapiro


Congratulations to Paul Thomley, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: The Banker’s Wife by Cristina Alger, An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, and Tell Me You’re Mine by Elisabeth Noreback.

This week’s giveaway is for The Collector’s Apprentice, the new novel by B. A. Shapiro, author of The Art Forger. The Collector’s Apprentice will be released by Algonquin Books next month, but one lucky reader will have a copy of the book in their hands well before then. Will it be you? Keep scrolling for more information on the books and how to enter the contest. (Note: since I’ll be on the road next week for the South Dakota Festival of Books, I’m making this a special two-week contest.)

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-fiancé, 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 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.

If you’d like a chance at winning The Collector’s Apprentice, simply email your name and mailing address to


Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail. One entry per person, please. Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on Sept. 27, at which time I’ll draw the winning name. I’ll announce the lucky reader on Sept. 28. If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.


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