Long and Short Reviews

Dark Masterpiece by Brieanna Robertson
Forbidden Publications
Contemporary Romance
Full length, Sweet
Review by Camellia

Art student Evie Austin has spent the last several years idolizing the famous and elusive painter, Traevyn Whitelaw. After an agonizing final report on the man, who also happens to be the most private and secretive person she has ever tried to do research on, her professor picks her for the once in a lifetime opportunity to be Traevyn Whitelaw's apprentice for the summer.

Ecstatic, she knows that her summer is going to be amazing, filled with lengthy discussions on art and beautiful things with the man she admires above all others. What she doesn't expect is to get stuck taking her sullen, sarcastic, seventeen-year-old brother with her at the last minute, and she definitely doesn't expect Traevyn Whitelaw to live in an isolated Gothic mansion by the ocean. What's worse is that the man she imagined to be so cultured and refined is no more than a sinister, snarling ogre who acts like having Evie and her brother in his home is the worst intrusion imaginable... He's also the most gorgeous man she has ever laid eyes on.

There is more than meets the eye to the dark, brooding artist with the painful past, and spunky, outspoken Evie plans on finding out just exactly what the man is made of.

♥ ♥ ♥

Brieanna Robertson truly does create a dark masterpiece in the character of Traevyn Whitelaw. She gives us a dark, brooding, gorgeous hero in spades. Traevyn Whitelaw, artist and recluse, escapes his torments only when he is absorbed in his painting.

Ms. Robertson’s description of the unspeakable pain that comes at the death of one’s child and the struggle to keep living a life that has any true meaning in the aftermath reaches out and grips the heart of the reader.

This beautiful, beleaguered man has been a major influence in Evie Austin’s life for years even though she has never met him. An artist herself, she feels a special connection with him from the very first time she sees his work. As a budding artist who is in her junior year in college, she still lacks confidence in her own work but her art professor sees her talent and her depth of understanding art. Since he is a friend and former teacher of Traevyn’s, he gets him to agree to have Evie as an apprentice for the summer.

She arrives at his house with her “pain-in-the-neck” seventeen-year-old brother in tow. Thus begins the rehabilitation of Traevyn and the blooming of a young woman whose self-esteem is in the cellar to the point that she feels “unbeautiful”. Moreover, she feels good about her sketches but is afraid to venture forth with her painting. She masks these misgivings well and refuses to be intimidated by the unpleasant demeanor of the man she has admired for so long. Her plucky, outspoken personality soon overrides the sinister snarls from her host. Before long she is cleaning his isolated Gothic mansion, cooking in his kitchen, reading his books, using his studio, Jacuzzi, terrace, and is even coaxing him out of his sadness and self-imposed isolation.

Ms. Robertson description of the soul-mate relationship that develops between the two is a joy to read. The humanness of her characters makes the reader feel as if they are acquaintances to be admired and loved as they find their way to a full and happy life.

Brianna Robertson’s style of writing is a treat to read.