Happy Sunday! Grab your mug of cocoa/coffee/tea, click the pics to visit other virtual reading rooms.. tell us..what are you reading this week??

Hello there, my little sugar puffs. Did you miss me last week? I was busy being me and I added some little decorations to my blog instead of doing a Salon. Do you notice the changes? Since I've only had a comment from my very biggest bestest fan ever and one other who likes my header, I must take that as an answer that not many like the fairies and all that jazz. Yes, I know, I am supposed to be a very intensely very serious book blogger. Well, ppphhhhmmmppphh is what I say. I get bored easy so I'll change it again someday, but for now, you are stuck with it. The moment I turn into a literary expert who gets paid for her opinions I'll make it look more professional. Basically, when the cow jumps over the moon.

Has the Spring Fever bug bitten you yet? Yes, it definitely has over here in the sunny bright state of Texas. I am enjoying the outdoors on the weekends with the kiddos as they run around and lose calories. You'll see me watching from the shaded patio with some sort of extra fattening substance like an iced coffee or frappe or latte with the accompanying Twinkie. Oh well, you only live once and I think my husband should be really grateful that he had the honor of a skinny wife for so many years... till now....muuaaah haaa haaa haaaaa.

{My new Drug of Choice}

I have really big dreams of exercising someday, but wearing 3" inch heels and carrying heavy 3" binders around at work is pretty much all the strenuous activity I have allowed in my life for the past six years. Yeah, okay, so maybe I am in a rut.. and hullo let me scream it really loud so y'all can hear me: BLOGGER BURN OUT!!

That's me. The poster child.

So if you don't see me around too much.. it's just because I have really had too much overload and my brain has turned into scrambled eggs (there I go thinking about food again!). I don't have any more reviews in the wings waiting to be published.. so it'll be sparse around here. Which I don't think you'll miss me much anyway. I do read your blog posts on the google reader during commercials, so I'll still be lurking.

And so with the blogging that has sizzled and fizzled this last week has dealt with the Round Table event for Claude and Camille... the fantastic novel on the love between.. well you know who.. and there were TWO giveaways.

The beautiful hardcover giveaway of Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell, who  honored my readers with a great guest post here, is going to .... Sandra K321

And the Monet prize pack Goodies from me to you that was alongside my review goes to.... Bekah

 A favorite book for me this year, titled THE KITCHEN HOUSE (my review), went up for grabs also along side a great Guest Post..

I have two lucky winners for this achingly inspiring haunting book.. and these two lucky folks are....
1.carolinagirlmommy

2.wiseowlreviews
Congratulations!

So if you didn't win these..(those with no email addresses were disqualified)  and you are aching to see you name being typed out by me as a winner at The Burton Review.. then run on over to enter my Book Giveaway for Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn. You know you want to. So here is your chance.

Besides that.. I caught up with some reviews of titles that were great additions to my library.
A fave of 2010 is The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees and you can see my review here if you missed the post.

I also reviewed The Queen's Dollmaker by Christine Trent. I know you all have seen this book around and around and around the blogosphere.. and it was for good reason. It was a great debut for Christine! She is hard at work at future novels, so you'd better hurry up and read this so you can keep up with her.

Also late this week I reviewed a witty and charming sequel by Monica Fairview, titled The Darcy Cousins. You may have heard of Monica, as I have reviewed her first Darcy book and had a guest post from her. She will return on Monday as part of her blog tour with a quick interview and yes, another giveaway for my lucky lucky followers. This is one of those Austen sequels that will always remain among my favorites.

The review posting of The Darcy Cousins marks 23 reviews published here in 2010. For 108 days, that makes about 5 days that it has been taking for me to read and review a book. Ok so let's say that I have 20 books in my review pile, which now includes already released books, and most to be released in the very near future. That equals 94 more days that I am still going to be stuck under this review pile. Gag. Choke. Cry.

Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell

As portrayed in Stephanie Cowell's new novel, Camille Doncieux was Claude's first true love. She was a Parisian girl with a bright future, yet she set her stars on the then unsuccessful Claude Monet. They struggled together throughout her lifetime to make ends meet, and she seemingly did it with style and grace just to be by Claude's side, against both of their parent's wishes.

What is behind the story of Camille that Stephanie writes? She does write of Claude using Camille as a model, and Camille was the subject of many of Monet's paintings until her death. She exhibited such charm to Monet's friends that she was the subject of many of their paintings as well. There are several paintings mentioned specifically in Claude and Camille that Camille posed for:

Women in the Garden Circa 1866

Women in the Garden was painted as Camille modeled as all the ladies for Monet in Sèvres, a commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France. She posed for several of these styles of domestic scenes for Claude, and also donned a wig for the La Japonaise painting in 1876. This became the last large scale portrait he did of her.

La Japonaise 1876

Auguste Renoir was a fellow artist friend and he painted Camille as she read La Figaro on the couch in 1872, and a few years later he painted Camille with her son, Jean Monet. Throughout Stephanie Cowell's book, Monet seems to be struggling with the very idea of who was Camille?

Renoir

Claude Monet painted his muse many many times after meeting her in 1866. Camille Doncieux was his muse, and she only became his wife three years after giving birth to their first son. Camille was born in Lyon in 1847. Sadly though, she died not too long after their second son was born.






After a long illness, Camille died at age 32 in 1879, leaving Claude with their two sons. The painting above was done by Monet as soon as she died; he wanted to 'keep her'. The grief of losing a loved one, the utter feeling of being alone and incomplete without hope must have been pressing upon him as he painted this. He 'found himself desiring to reproduce the last image of she who would leave us forever.'

After Camille's death, Claude begged her elder sister to explain some of the momentos left behind. Camille was portrayed as flighty with her moods, but almost always supportive of Claude and his artistic

In Cowell's novel, Camille is portrayed as a woman with a vigor for life, and with a zest for creative outlets such as dramas, acting and writing. The death scene is not how she would have wanted to be remembered, and Monet may have known that which is why the death painting remained hidden for many years until his son allowed it to be viewed, years after Monet's own death. Monet kept a portrait of Camille in his bedroom for the rest of his life.

In my search for Camille, I made the following compilation which includes both Monet and Renoir paintings of Camille. I included the Auguste Renoir paintings because the show a more vivid likeness of Camille, as opposed to Monet's own very impressionistic style, with the wider strokes of the brush.

Turn up your volume to hear the accompanying music, Violin Concerto in E minor - Andante: