A chance meeting with a charismatic photographer will forever change Elizabeth’s life.

Until she met Richard, Elizabeth's relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe and her little-known Hawaii paintings was purely academic. Now it’s personal. Richard tells Elizabeth that the only way she can truly understand O’Keeffe isn’t with her mind―it’s by getting into O’Keeffe’s skin and reenacting her famous nude photos.

In the intimacy of Richard’s studio, Elizabeth experiences a new, intoxicating abandon and fullness. It never occurs to her that the photographs might be made public, especially without her consent. Desperate to avoid exposure―she’s a rising star in the academic world and the mother of young children―Elizabeth demands that Richard dismantle the exhibit. But he refuses. The pictures are his art. His property, not hers.

As word of the photos spreads, Elizabeth unwittingly becomes a feminist heroine to her students, who misunderstand her motives in posing. To the university, however, her actions are a public scandal. To her husband, they’re a public humiliation. Yet Richard has reawakened an awareness that’s haunted Elizabeth since she was a child―the truth that cerebral knowledge will never be enough.

Now she must face the question: How much is she willing to risk to be truly seen and known?

Author Bio:

Barbara Linn Probst is a writer, researcher, clinician, and “serious amateur” pianist living on a historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Barbara’s novels (Queen of the Owls, April 2020, and The Sound of One Hand, coming in April 2021) tell of the search for authenticity, wholeness, and connection. In both novels, art helps the protagonist to become more fully herself.
Queen of the Owls has been chosen as a 2020 selection by the Pulpwood Queens Book Club, a network of more than 780 book clubs across the U.S.

Author of the groundbreaking book on nurturing out-of-the-box children, When the Labels Don't Fit, Barbara also holds a PhD in clinical social work and is a frequent guest essayist on major online sites for fiction writers. 

Independently published with She Writes Press