One of the best things about reading novels is how they can take you into new worlds. The world of any book is, of course, always its author’s creation, whether it be rooted in truth, or based on a skewed version of the world we know, or one entirely of the author’s own imagining but what I mean here is that some of the books I enjoy the most are the ones that introduce me to a world I either know nothing or very little about. And so it is with Natasha Solomons’ third novel, The Gallery of Vanished Husbands. 

The Gallery of Vanished Husbands is set in two very different and often conflicting worlds: the conservative Jewish community in which the main character, Juliet Montague, is brought up and the art world of 1960s London which she falls into but then manages to carve out a role for herself. Read more