Claude and Camille by Stephanie Cowell

Claude Monet arrived in Paris in the middle of the 19th century determined to be a great artist.  He and other young men, Renoir, Pissaro and Bazille among them, share a garret apartment and very little money.  It is here that Monet meets Camille-Leonie Doncieux and her sister Annette.  The girls begin as models but, in spite of the fact that Camille is all but engaged to another man, she and Claude fall in love.  She gives up her comfortable life to follow a starving artist believing that some day the world will recognize his greatness.  She realizes that she will always be second to his art.  It is the passion that drives him and she is his muse.  Much in the tradition of Paris Wife, we see that amazing period in art and all the individuals who lived through it and wonder how they all managed not to stave to death while they were changing the world of art.  You will need an art history book (or website if you must) at hand because you will want to see every painting referred to by all the artists in the story as well as verify that the facts of the story are correct.  They seemed to be, but no objective biography can tell the story with the same passion as a fine work of historical fiction.  Gotta love the genre.