The Flames

Set in the bold, Bohemian art world of early 20th-century Vienna, award-winning author Sophie Haydock’s The Flames is the electrifying untold story of the four muses of controversial painter Egon Schiele.

Vienna at the dawn of the 20th century is an opulent, extravagant city teeming with art, music, and radical ideas. A place where the social elite attend glamorous balls in the city’s palaces while young intellectuals decry the empire across the tables of crowded cafés. It is a city where anything seems possible—if you are a man.

From this world emerge four muses, women whose bodies are rendered in intimate detail by the charming yet controversial young artist Egon Schiele: Gertrude, his sister, is possessive, single-minded, and jealous; his mistress, Vally, a young woman from an impoverished background, is making her way as a model for the famed painter Gustav Klimt; and Edith and Adele Harms, wealthy sisters, are vying to become the wife of their scandalous neighbor Schiele.

Schiele’s work—and private life—sends shock waves through Vienna’s elite; yet, determined to defy convention and forge their own paths, these women risk everything—their reputations, their most precious relationships, and their sanity and souls—to hold on to the man they adore. As the Spanish influenza pandemic ravages Europe and World War I throws off course their lives forever, all it will take is one act of betrayal to change everything. In her richly rendered and deeply researched debut novel, Sophie Haydock brings this unforgettable world to incandescent life as she gives these women the chance to have their say.

Includes Black-and-White Images