My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for thus audio...

**Note**: This is a companion book to Still Lives. Certain things are mentioned that took place in Still Lives, but this is a separate story.

Brenae Brasil is a popular art student at Los Angeles Art College. She films her suicide. Why? Maggie Richter comes to the coast for a museum job and finds herself thrown into Brenaes investigation and story and the dark world of art.

I have to say this was not my favorite . I was expecting more focus on Brenae and her story. This got all over the place. Too many characters and a lot of jumping around. Good narrator but this was a challenge.

Who knew the art world was so dangerous? I didnt. The cover that Maggie goes into uncovering was engaging but also heart breaking.
Maria Hummel's style of writing is very poetic. I enjoyed this book because I enjoy her writing style but Still Lives was my favorite of the 2 books.

This is the second book in this highly entertaining, art world series and I highly recommend it. The audio version had an excellent narrator with a nice glow and it was easy to follow along. The art world scene is fascinating and Hummel is an excellent writer.

While not quite living up to its captivating precursor, Still Lives, a Lesson in Red (nice hat-too to Sherlock Holmes) is still an engaging mystery/thriller that you enjoy tagging along for the ride. Even slightly darker given the content of our victim’s art portfolio. We see our previously known characters again as their collective and individual stories abs relationships progress which does allow the reader to become more invested in everything happening. And it’s all still a mystery until
The very end as we follow our heroine on her undercover investigation. I will definitely recommend this book to mystery and suspense lovers, especially if they have read the previous story, though one doesn’t have to in order to enjoy this one.

3 stars

A sordid tale of r*pe, assault, abuse, manipulation, suicide, & murder, & how wealthy & powerful men get away with it. The plot is improbable, but still engaged me. The prose is decent. I feel ambivalent about the characters.

[What I liked:]

•Hah, I really love what happened to the shoe cathedral sculpture!!

•I enjoyed the setting of the art school, art gallery, & art museum world. It was interesting to read about.

•Hal was an unfortunately all to believable character, from his egoism to his prejudices, & from his cover up of r*pe culture to his later apology tour/image rehabilitation campaign. That aspect of the plot was not far fetched at all.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•My fault for not reading the prequel, but the beginning of the book was confusing. It took me awhile to figure out the events of the previous book & what was happening in the present. I didn’t realize from the blurb that this was part of a series, which compounded my initial confusion.

•The audiobook is overall a good performance & recording, but the narrator’s attempt at Ray’s southern accent was unsuccessful & annoying. It was basically unrecognizable as a southern accent, except the narrative mentioned it explicitly so I know that’s what the narrator was attempting. Tbh, I’d prefer no fake accent to a weirdly bad one.

•Ray & the MC’s romance was rather dull & didn’t contribute to the story. They lacked chemistry, & the attraction was awkward & unnecessarily drawn out.

•I didn’t connect with the MC. I didn’t buy her motivation for helping with the investigation, & she didn’t have much character development overall.

•The plot, especially the drugging & escape, had some hard to believe moments.

CW: r*pe, molestation, physical assault, murder, suicide, non consensual drugging

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

I have not read Still Lives yet... But its highly on my list! This could be read as a standalone but I hate reading books outta order! Just me!

This was a very intriguing, good, quick listen!
I really loved the narrator, crisp and so easy to follow along!
The writing is fabulous. Absolutely amazing!
The only thing I didn't care for was there is too many characters. I had to keep searching to keep up on who was who! But still an amazing book!

Thank you NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for this amazing audio book!