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The Art Collector's Wife
Historical Fiction
Sublisted for the Santa Fe Writing Projects 2023 Literary Awards Program
2025 Firebird Book Award Winner: First place, Historical Fiction, First Place Holocaust, Second Place Coming-of-Age
In 1962 Venice, Italy, seventeen-year-old Isabel is shoplifting and skipping class until she discovers a fantastical secret about her Holocaust survivor grandmother Lila: she has stashed away a collection of Renaissance Art. To be fair, it's not a complete surprise: Lila is secretive about the war and that dreadful time before when the whole living world came to a standstill. More than anything else, Isabel longs to know about her mother and father who perished. THE ART COLLECTOR'S WIFE is a story that travels across the canals of Venice all the way to the catacombs of Paris in search of a family's truth.
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Midwest Book Review
The Art Collector's Wife opens in 1962 Venice, where teen Isobel is shoplifting and skipping class. When she stumbles upon a secret involving her Holocaust survivor grandmother and the artwork she harbors, Isabel finds long-held questions about family history and secrets raging to the surface to replace her misbehaving misdemeanors.
Suddenly, she wants answers rather than conducting petty rebellious acts. The redirect of her teen angst and energy towards uncovering uncomfortable truths forces a truth to emerge that she hadn't anticipated from her prior knowledge about her family.
The story opens in Auschwitz in 1945, where Lila marks the month of her imprisonment with a shoe buckle hidden from Nazi inspections. She hasn't seen her son Leo in eight months, his girlfriend about to give birth, and Lila fears the worst. Liberation arrives on their doorstep to offer hope before life changes once again as more disasters strike.
Under these circumstances, Isabel was born. Under very different conditions, she is raised well protected from the terrible events that changed their family forever.
As Isabel becomes immersed in art history, dangerous knowledge, and Italians who pursue more than a fortune, readers become thoroughly involved in a family's journey, which extends throughout Europe from Venice to Paris.
Susan Knecht takes the backdrop of World War II's aftermath, creates a deep dive into the art and relic world of its impact, then adds the story of a teenager who thinks she knows many things—but actually doesn't know enough about her family's background and choices.
How Isabel uncovers and integrates these realizations into her own decisions and a vastly revised world makes for a compelling novel of special interests, greed, survival, and long-term recovery. These elements are why The Art Collector's Wifeshould be on library shelves and assigned to mature teens interested in realistic stories about survival and preservation.
Replete with engrossing twists, discoveries, and historical insights, both Lila and Isabel's perspectives are thoroughly, wonderfully explored in an enlightening plot packed with tension and unexpected events:
Whatever is left will be something to be thankful for. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Just like when she was born, Isabel will still be whole, and beyond that Lila cannot imagine.
That's why The Art Collector's Wife is a standout that's highly recommended. Readers interested in a teen's coming-of-age in a time where family truths are only starting to emerge from the Holocaust will discover that "survival" assumes different meanings on new levels for each generation pursuing new lives in the war's aftermath.
Literary Titan: Five Stars
Susan Knecht’s The Art Collector’s Wife is an emotionally rich, time-skipping novel that weaves together post-war trauma, intergenerational secrets, art-world intrigue, and the sharp edges of teenage rebellion. It starts in the horror of Auschwitz, then unfolds decades later in sun-drenched Venice, following the fractured legacy of one family—particularly the women who survived and the granddaughter determined to uncover the past. It’s part historical drama, part coming-of-age, with a steady undercurrent of longing.
I loved this book. It’s heavy but worth it. The prose is poetic without being precious, the story moves through decades without losing momentum, and the characters feel real, flawed, and alive. If you’re into multi-generational family sagas, WWII fiction with a heart, or just crave a book that will grab you by the collar, The Art Collector’s Wife is for you.
