Portrait of an Unknown Woman
by Vanora Bennett
Harper, HK$128
Historical novels are a success if you come away from them entertained and enlightened. Vanora Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman affords much detail that supports as well as adorns her fictional story of a love triangle connecting statesman Thomas More's foster daughter Meg Giggs, her tutor John Clement and Tudor court painter Hans Holbein. Although Bennett employs artistic licence (and licentiousness) when describing their relationships, the subjects of the day are carefully drawn. The setting is London during the Protestant Reformation. Holbein paints two surprisingly different portraits of More's family five years apart, and Bennett imagines what might have happened to the family during that time. Apart from tantalising readers with bodice-ripping romance courtesy of Giggs - who otherwise is disturbed by her self-flagellating father's torture of heretics - Portrait delves into the mystery of the teenage Plantagenet princes Edward and Richard, believed to have been murdered by their uncle Richard III. But it's the love story that should grab readers, and with good reason. Giggs marries a man who isn't who he seems to be, but falls in love with the artist. A stroke of genius is Holbein's inclusion in his artwork Clement's and the More family's secrets.