The Last Nude by Ellis Avery is a taut, elegant novel that imagines an intense love affair between the painter Tamara de Lempicka and her model Rafaela, a young American, in 1920s Paris. The aristocratic Tamara has a flair for business. Rafaela, openhearted despite the sordid ways in which she's had to barter herself in the past, is a loyal muse. How ambition corrupts and clouds us is the focus of Avery's story, but she's at her best when she revels in the allure of art and love. Whether describing a painting or Rafaela's sexual awakening, her prose sings: “I was a leaping dog. I was liquor; I was laughter; I was a sliding girl on a shining rail: something I'd forgotten how to be.” (amazon.com)

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