Another recommendation

Remakable Creatures was mentioned this week to me a a book that a patron could not put down. She said she recommended it to me because I had told her that I liked Jane Austen novels. Tracy Chevalier writes historical fiction by trying to recreate the lives of famous people and imagine their conversations, thoughts and feelings. That's a tall order, but her first novel, The Girl with a Pearl Earring was a masterpiece in itself. The story is about the famous Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. The author imagines a young servant girl working in the painter's studio, becoming his muse, and inspiring one of Vermeer's masterpieces. The painting became more popular, and when I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam they told us as we bought our tickets that The Girls with the Pearl Earring painting was located at the Maurishuis in the Hague. I thought they must have been asked that question too many times.
This novel, Remarkable Creatures, is the recreation of the lives of English Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two spinsters interested in collecting fossils along the beaches near Lymes, England. I haven't read it yet, but it sound like a good summer read, walking along the beach is a must for me every summer.