I Am You by Victoria Redel

At eight years old, Gerta Pieters is forced to disguise herself as a boy and sent to work for a genteel family.

When their daughter Maria sees through Gerta’s ruse, she insists Gerta accompany her to Amsterdam and help her enter the elite, male-dominated art world. While Maria rises in the ranks of society as a painting prodigy, Gerta makes herself invaluable in every way: confidante, muse, lover.

But as Gerta steps into her own talents, their relationship fractures into a complex web of obsession and rivalry, until the secrets they keep threaten to unravel everything. A mesmerising historical novel, I Am You is a meditation on gender, an ode to artistic creation, and an unforgettable love story that reimagines the life of renowned painter Maria van Oosterwijck during the Dutch Golden Age.