Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge audio for the advance listen. Enjoyed this audiobook. Narrator did a great job. Loved all the history in this story. Would recommend!

The Sculptress by V. S. Alexander pulled me in from the very beginning. I have been drawn to period listens and this one appealed to me. Thank you #NetGalley for letting me listen to an early copy, I enjoyed it so much that I purchased the book for myself. The author wrote some vivid descriptions and created characters with compassion. I loved how the main character wanted to give wounded warriors some confidence in their scarred appearance. Sarah Mollo-Christensen performance was excellent. She inflicted the right emotions in her voice and brought characters to life.

The Sculptress shows a lot of promise, but it all quickly drops away, like the discarded material chipped away by a sculptors (or -tresses) chisel.

My major complaint with this novel (and the thing that kept me from really settling in and enjoying the good stuff about it) was how anachronistic it all felt. The writing didn't sound like the early 1900s. The people didn't act like people did in the early 1900s. It all just felt kind of wrong. Like the early 1900s had suddenly and inexplicably been repopulated with Millennials and Gen-Zs.

The narration was well done, but not enough so to redeem the book. And to the authors credit, there didn't seem to be any specific startling anachronisms. It just all felt off. And it kept me from enjoying what otherwise might have been a decent book.

Thank you NetGalley & HighBridge Audio for the opportunity to read this book! Overall rating 4stars / 5stars
The Sculptress is a historical fiction novel based on WWI. Based on the title & first few chapters of the book I expected it to be focused more on art / sculpting, while still a part of the book this just wasn’t at the forefront. The book meanders through the life of the sculptress, Emma, and her relationships & feelings toward men. Emma is a very realistic leading character - so strong in some areas of her life, while struggling in others. I definitely recommend this book if you are a character driven reader who enjoys a satisfying ending. Content warning for readers on: abortion & suicide.

When seeing a title The Sculptress, one expects to learn about the main character developing her craft. It is more than 6 hours into the audio book, that we learn what the character is doing. Much of the book focuses on Ella’s belief about love and romance, and her connections with three men. The abortion portion seemed unrealistic and unimaginable in 1909. I found the characters shallow and the storyline predictable.

The distance between the beginning & the end of this story is surely as far as the distance between Massachusetts and France. I’m not sure that the first few chapters were even necessary except to establish that Emma may have been capable of selfless love. Maybe. Her self loathing is understandable. Her distrust and disillusionment with others is equally as understandable. But her reactions to the obstacles of her life? They didn’t feel entirely authentic. I’ll be fair. I’m not sure if I would have felt that way if I didn’t know the author was male. That fact caused me to question Emma’s responses time and again. I’ll stick with the fourth star because I recognize my own bias. That said, I found most of Emma’s choices to be so selfish—even the ones intended to be portrayed as selfless—that I found her to be wildly unlikeable.

After reading the synopsis of this book, I was looking forward to a story about how an artist made masks for injured soldiers in France during WWI. I was sad that very little of the book actually covered this topic.

The story starts when Emma was a young girl living at home and covered quite a bit of territory throughout the story. It felt to me like there were too many story lines going on and I had a difficult time keeping up with the story.

I truly wanted to like this book but it was difficult to get into and I struggled throughout the entire reading. I truly appreciate netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of the book to read and review. The opinions are my own.

The Sculptress is not my first book by V.S. Alexander. His books have always captivated me and I was excited to get my hand on this one.

The novel has a strong story line focused on Emma’s personal interest in art and romance. While love is some what of a dark horse in Emma’s life she is determined to find happiness even as the world is crumbling around her.

I loved the details written about the war, it’s impact on Paris, and learning of the sculpted masks made for disfigured soldiers but I wanted more. More of the men she helped heal through her art, their stories, and her experiences in spending time with them. However, the war and her art ended up playing second fiddle to Emma’s complicated love life.

Regrettably, I never connected with Emma as a protagonist, finding her to be fickle and unpredictable. So many of her decisions made me literally shake my head......Why Emma? Why???

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Four stars with a 14+ rating for one intimate scene. I would recommend this to any romance loving war or art buff who doesn’t mind a strong romantic focus.

I received an Advanced reader copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Emma Lewis wants to become a sculptor and has pushback as society does not see it suitable as a career for a woman. The time is World War 1. Emma always has trouble with the faces of her subjects and struggles to make them precise. Emma is in a passionless marriage and her husband, a doctor, is sent away to help the wounded in Paris. While he is in Paris, she strikes up a questionable relationship with another artist. The invitation arrives from her husband to travel to France and Emma takes it. When she arrives, she works for a sculptor of sorts who creates new faces from clay for the soldiers that were wounded. I love it when there is a strong female protagonist and Emma was one. Her love life seemed to be the main subject instead of her sculpting. This was a beautiful story of love, loss and shows that life isn’t stagnant but always changing.

It's really unfortunate that this story was so bogged down with bizarre choices and the constant affirmation of Emma's "appeal" rather than exploring the universe more. Set in WWI in Boston and France, there is a lot that could be done. The parts about the soldiers whose masks are being sculpted by the protagonist were interesting but were less about the soldiers themselves than how Emma felt about all this. Were it written in the first person rather than the third, I would more understand it but honestly, it just felt like she was the (male) author's insert into this universe where everyone is endlessly attracted to this beguiling woman, even in the middle of the war.

I have a few bones to pick with some of the things that happened in the book. First, a civilian woman would never have been permitted to dress up in a dead man's uniform and go to the front to see her husband. Second, the out-of-the-blue reveal about the author of the letters was completely absurd and felt like the remnants of a re-write that was either never caught for continuity or was added at the last second as a solution for a problem the author didn't know how to otherwise deal with.

Ultimately, Emma was a shallow, selfish person who could have been better with a little growth, but she actually just got worse. And I maintain she's a rapist. No matter how much of a cad a dude is, and Kurt SUCKED, if you coerce someone into a sexual relationship through blackmail, you're not having consensual sex, you're committing rape. Not even going to comment on the heartlessness of Kurt's last scene; I was infuriated on his behalf and every last thing that Emma did and said to him was criminally cruel.

I will say that I loved the character of Linton, and Anne (when she was around) was delightful.

The narrator of the audiobook is Sarah Mollo-Christensen. She has a lovely speaking voice and as others have noted, is very good with the female characters but the men mostly sound the same. Occasionally there was a weird, gaspy quality that I didn't love (it's a pet peeve), but it wasn't a trial to listen to.

As far as historical fiction goes, this is fine. It gets points for talking about the actual work that actual artists (like Anna Coleman Ladd) did to help men who had been brutally disfigured in battle find some semblance of normalcy, but loses points by using a total jerk to talk about it and focusing more on weird, clumsy sex scenes between a woman and the men who worshiped her for no reason I could discern.

I received a copy of this audiobook for free from NetGalley and HighBridge Audio in exchange for an honest, voluntary review.

I was intrigued to read this book because I have enjoyed other books by VS Alexander. He does a great job researching the time period in which his books are set and creates great characters.

However, I could not connect with this book. There were no strong character traits that stuck out to me. This book is about a female sculptress in WW1. She is not given the praise that she deserves for her talent. She moves to Europe to assist with creating masks for disfigured soldiers.

I think the story could have been better with strong characters and a stronger story line.

I really am not sure how to feel about this novel. I did not find Emma, the man protagonist, particularly likeable, and not in a flawed-narrator sort of way. However, there were parts of the story that I found myself being draw into the terrors faced during WWI war time. The audiobook is suitably performed, though all of the male characters sound alike. Emma and the female characters are more differentiated however, which is fine since the book seems to be mostly about the struggles of females in the professional and personal realms during this time. The book dragged in places, yet I found myself wanting to stick it out to the end.

This book was so sad to me! I felt so bad for Emma for pretty much everything!
Trusted the wrong man, life-altering decision, settled and married next man, fell in love with the right man but stayed with the husband.... It goes on and on!

I loved the story and the characters. I felt that they interacted well and the stories between each were well thought out.

The ending was absolutely crazy!

This was a lovely book and I am happy that I was able to read it!

I "read" the audio version of this book and found it difficult to stay in the story. It was very long and drawn out in places and easy to loose track. I don't think I liked the main character or her mother much from the very beginning. The circumstances they all found themselves are understandable. Her sculpting was never the main point,it was more on her poor decisions and coming full circle. If you are a fan of wartime stories, there is a lot of WWI information and stories of the hardships during that time.
I was provided an advanced reader copy and was under no obligation to provide a review. The opinions expressed are my own. Thanks to the author ,publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.

What a amazing historical fiction! I had no idea about masks being made for soldiers. This book left me wanting to research more. I really enjoyed this story, so many historical fictions are same thing over and over, this was not that! Will for sure suggest this others.

Thank you Net Galley for an audio copy of The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander. This was an enjoyable historical fiction novel that showed that life and love is ever changing. I thought the author and the narrator did a great job.

COMMENTS ON THE AUDIOBOOK:
Sarah Mollo-Christensen, the narrator of The Sculptress, has a very pleasant speaking voice. She is able to assume different voices for each character, though her male voices tend to all sound alike. She does a great job on Emma’s voice, that of Emma’s best friend, and the Irish maid.

COMMENTS ON THE BOOK ITSELF:
I generally enjoy books about art and artists, so I was intrigued by The Sculptress, which is based on the life of the real-life sculptress, Anna Coleman-Ladd. It is set in post-Gilded Age, pre-World War I America, later moving to France in World War I.

The protagonist, Emma Lewis, has enough “wobble” in her personality to be interesting; however, some readers may be uncomfortable with her as she is quite calculating and not particularly likable. I also found her character to be rather inconsistent. In late adolescence, she and Kurt, a young man on whom she’s had a crush since she was fifteen. When he realizes she’s a virgin (after their first sexual encounter), he bluntly states he’s not interested in marriage as he has college and law school to get through. They compromise: no marriage, yet she bargains with him, telling him he has to be available for sex whenever she desires him (as the horse is already out of the barn, so to speak).

During this time, at fifteen, she begins to study under Daniel Chester French, the world-renowned sculptor. Later, she moves to Boston and studies art there, hobnobbing with such notables as Isabella Stewart Gardner and John Singer Sargent. Beyond this, there is little about her growth as an artist. She marries Thomas Swan, a physician. He’s a good provider, but a lackluster lover. She has a studio at home but is rarely seen working in it. We hear nothing about her studies, and her artistry seems more like a side note as opposed to something that truly drives her. Rather, she spends most of her time bemoaning her love life (or lack there of), the baby (Kurt’s) she aborted, and her infatuation with the young blind painter, Linton Bower. Before she takes off to France, only three works of art are mentioned: the faun she lets melt in a rainstorm, her Diana which finally sells to an unknown buyer, and the Narcissus which she sees as a symbol of modern nations driving themselves to war, for which she plans to use Bower as a model.

This book seemed to be more about social issues (her pre-marital sexual experiences), infidelity, women’s issues (women weren’t felt to have the necessary range of artistic ability to become sculptors), and discrimination (Emma took her Irish housekeeper to a social event just to rile her hostess); however, I never saw her development as a sculptress.

Emma goes to France at her husband’s request. He describes how an English physician is making masks for soldiers with damaged faces, and Thomas feels her skills as a sculptress might help her help them (this despite her lack of skill with faces). There she further explores her sexuality.

The Sculptress is supposed to be about a woman that is a sculptress that can't get the recognition allowing her to get patrons to support her. She ultimately finds that she can go to France and help the war effort by making masks for injured soldiers. However, this book is more about a woman struggling with her baser desires and wanting to have sex with every man she meets. Not that she actually does have sex with all of them, but she struggles not to. There is also a very graphic scene where she rapes a man, and that wouldn't be tolerated by most readers if it was a man raping her.

There was a doctor in France at the end of WWI that did the work of constructing masks for these valiant men, it's too bad that this book didn't dwell more on that endeavor. Thank you #NetGalley for allowing me the freedom to give my honest opinion on #TheSculptress. The narrator Sarah Mollo-Christensen, is one that I have heard from other books and she is always pleasant to the ear.

Trigger warnings: war, abortion, disfigured soldiers, suicide

The beginning of the novel is set in America, both in Vermont and Massachusetts. The story revolves around Emma Lewis' young life as she begins to study sculpture with the most prominent artist in the country. Her mother is displeased with the vulgarity (nudity) displayed in art and thinks that her daughter will end up a poor degenerate if she pursues art seriously.

When tragedy strikes her family, Emma is forced to give up her dreams of art school. She eventually marries Tom, who she's not in love with but provides her with a comfortable living. Emma Lewis Swan continues to sculpt and draw and her pieces are displayed and sold in a gallery.

Through the gallery, Emma meets a blind painter who she decides to use as a model because of his attractiveness. Rumors swirl around the pair, including rumors that he is homosexual and that Emma is having an affair with the man.

Emma decides to travel to France to escape the rumors and do some good instead of creating art for herself. Her new line of work is to create masks for soldiers who have disfigured faces.

Emma's past decisions come back to haunt her while she is in France, and she must choose how she wants to live her life going forward.

There are some cringy sex scenes in the novel worthy of a mention in Men Write Women but other than that the writing is adequate. The story is a bit plot-light so it becomes a slog in certain chapters.

Sarah Mollo-Christensen has a calming voice that sounds like she'd be an excellent narrator for self-help or meditation. Unfortunately, this means it's easy for the reader's attention to drift away from the story.

Recommended only for avid readers of war fiction.

This story sounded so tempting to my reader’s fancy, but I was highly disappointed by its ability to capture my interest. I think the writing style could have been a little bit more in depth in terms of imagery. Therefore, I read this a three out of five.