Woman in Blue

'You will live beyond one lifetime and beyond even two in the painting he makes of you.'

In the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, there is a painting called Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Each day a man visits to gaze at it. He is irresistibly drawn to it. Obsessed by it. He studies the painting, in search of resolutions to his past and present loves, and the Woman in Blue studies him back. For there is more to the Woman in Blue than any of the men who gaze upon her realise. She has a story of her own to tell.

With a delicate balance of truth and fiction, past and present, Bruton masterfully explores the intersection between art, artist and viewer, arriving at a profound meditation on love and creation.

'A book that celebrates quietness, beauty and love, it is one to savour' —Victoria Mackenzie, author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain


'Douglas Bruton's narrative once again immerses us in a life that shimmers through the delicate fabrics of art' —Julia Nemirovskaya, editor of Disbelief: 100 Anti-War Poems

'Douglas Bruton is a writer of boundless invention' —Stephen May, author of Sell Us The Rope

Douglas Bruton is the author of five previous novels: The ChessPiece Magician (2009), Mrs Winchester's Gun Club (2019), BluePostcards (2021), With or Without Angels (2022) and Hope Never Knew Horizon (2024). Blue Postcards was longlisted for the Walter ScottPrize for Historical Fiction 2021. His short fiction has appeared in variouspublications including Northwords Now, New Writing Scotland, Aesthetica,The Fiction Desk and the Irish Literary Review, and has woncompetitions including Fish and the Neil Gunn Prize. He lives in the ScottishBorders.

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