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This was totally unexpected. After reading Me Before You, I was all geared up to have my emotions raked across the rocks (in a good way), and this wasn't that. It wasn't a bad story, but it's always difficult to readjust expectations.

Sophie is an artist's wife living in occupied France. On the wall of her hotel hangs a portrait of her, painted by her husband. It's daring and sexy in a way Sophie struggles to see herself and it catches the eye of the Kommandant who craves Sophie. When she discovers that her husband has been taken prisoner and likely to die, she gives up a part of herself to the Kommandant to save her husband's life.

Many years later, we meet Liv, a widow with money troubles and a painting given to her by her husband. It becomes the subject of controversy when the family of Sophie's husband claims it was stolen during the war and rightfully belongs to the estate. Liv fights passionately to keep the painting because of the connection to her deceased husband, but as she fights she learns Sophie's story and starts to fight for something else.

While I adored Sophie's story, I struggled with Liv's. From the beginning I wasn't sure what she was fighting for or why. Her need to hold on to this painting felt arbitrary and silly, especially when giving it up could have solved many, if not all, of her financial concerns.