I recently read several positive reviews of this book on blogs that I follow and decided that I needed to read it. I wasn't disappointed. The book is fantastic. It has several features that I am always attracted to such as art, women in trades, a medieval era and a new, to me, setting in Amsterdam.

The story begins in 1660 Amsterdam which is the trading and map-printing capital of the world. Anneke van Brug is one of the colorists paid to enhance black-and-white maps for a growing number of collectors. Having been trained by her mother, Anneke's talent brings her to the attention of the Blaeu printing house where her mother has worked for many years. After several months of coloring fir Blaeu, Anneke begins to color for a rich merchant, Willem de Groot, in his home. Anneke is not content to simply embellish the work of others. She longs to create maps of her own. Cartography, however, is the domain of me so she secretly borrows the notes her father made on a trip to Africa in 1642 and sets about designing a new map of Africa. Anneke hopes to convince the charismatic de Groot to use his influence to persuade Blaeu to include her map in the Atlas Maior, which will be the largest and most expensive publication of the century. However, family secrets, infidelity, and murder endanger her dream.

I loved this story! It has a ritzy setting and wonderful characters. It was fascinating to learn how maps were created in this era and how the colors of paint were made by the artists. In those days the maps were not made from pictures but detailed notes from the people who had explored the area. They needed to be surveyors in order to accomplish this. Anneke's brother Lucas had this training and she desperately wanted to be able to travel as a cartographer. As a woman, it was impossible.

Anneke was a pleasant character in the beginning. By the midway point in the book it was obvious that she could not keep her mouth shut and that this would be her downfall. It was. As the plot developed Anneke had more and more secrets to keep, but she never kept them and she brought problems both to herself and her family. She was not likable in my opinion but the author continued to show her as a victim. I thought this was a mistake.

The Map Colorist is a well researched novel and I highly recommend it. ( )

Historical read following a family in Amsterdam during the height of this city being the trading and map-pringing capital of the world. The van Brug family is known for their high quality map coloring and their father has told stories of his travels to new lands far different from anything in Amsterdam. Anneke, the daughter has always taken to the map coloring in becoming a part of them when she gets asked to complete work for a wealthy map collector, her parents agree she cannot turn this opportunity down. Entering the world of the wealthy, Anneke is quite innocent in her way of seeing the world and when given the option to have her choice of any gift bestowed upon her, she choses something unexpected and what had always seemed just a dream out of reach for a female of her time. She wants to put her fathers dream to print, while showing her skills and knowledge. Little does she know this gift may just be the downfall of the secrets her family has harbored and might just unveil why her fathers dream had never always been just that, a nightly tale he told. This was a very interesting read about map mapping and surveying during that time. Thank you to LibraryThing and to the author for the free novel I won in a giveaway. This review is of my own opinion and accord.

*I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.*

Anneke van Brug is a talented young map colorist in seventeenth-century Amsterdam with ambitions to make her own map. Her efforts to make this goal a reality turn out to have devastating consequences for her entire family, as old family secrets are revealed and the dark machinations of Anneke's employers threaten her own future. This novel was deeply researched and manages to make seventeenth-century Amsterdam felt incredibly present and real. Overall, a fascinating read that would appeal to historical fiction fans. ( )

This was an interesting piece of historical fiction. Set in Amsterdam mostly in 1660 and 1661, Anneke van Brug is a young woman who longs to go beyond the map coloring she does to help her family's finances, and actually make a map herself. Sitting in on cartography lessons for her brother, and using notes from her artist father's earlier trip to Africa, she does just that. Along the way, she has to deal with society's expectations for women, as well of those of her employer and a client's adulterous wife. Rebecca D'Harlingue's well-researched novel incorporates real people from the era into the story. ( )

"Women taking a different path" is, says the author blurb, the subject Rebecca D'Harlingue likes to write about. This historical fiction novel, about a 17th century woman who colors maps and yearns to do even more, is an admirable entry in this very popular chick-lit sub-genre. In Amsterdam at this time, map-making was an art in itself, and Amsterdam was the map-printing center of the world. The known world was growing as the age of exploration widened European's views of lands outside their ken and previous reach, and along with the desirable printing of maps came the art and skill of coloring the black-and-white printed versions that were published at the time.

Anneke, her mother Lysbeth, and her brother Lucas, have jobs as map colorists, adding flourishes and interest to the visual art that patrons would hang on their wall. This story is the story of Anneke and her ambitions to become not only a great map colorist but also to widen her world by making her own map. But this is more than the story of one girl; this is the story of a family very bound by social and legal boundaries which force all of them into behaviors, roles and stories not of their own choosing.

The story begins very typically for this genre, with the focus on Anneke and her development into a quite talented artist, and the difficulties she encounters as she tries to move among the male world of the printers and collectors. The story gains momentum as you go, widening the scope to include not only her own conflicts but those of her family as well. Her own conflicts are mainly social ones, as she navigates the social mores of the time vis a vis relations with possible suitors and bosses. She also has to deal with the problems of class conflicts, as she develops a closeness to, and yet a major conflict with, her employer of quite a higher social class than herself. The employer's wife also puts her in grave social danger, at a time when the close-knit society would "cancel" you if you transgressed mores.

I found the story of Lysbeth, Anneke's mother, more poignant than Anneke's. Lysbeth's story is one of lost love for a man not in her life anymore, and complicated love for the man she did choose as her husband, Isaac. I found the author fleshed out Lysbeth's character with realistic emotional conflicts and depths of desires, fears and worries that made her stand out in this novel. She, as well, is subject to the limitations of life for women at this time, and unlike her daughter, is more constrained, by her marriage and role as wife and mother, limiting her from exploring her talent more than her daughter.

Isaac's and Lucas' stories also add to the realism of social strictures of the time and place, and I found their characterizations and story arcs similarly developed and interesting.

Overall I found this an engrossing read. Plot points include infidelity, twisty revelations, intrigue and danger. A great read. Thank you to the author and publishers for a review copy. ( )