Stroke of deception

World War II is raging, and young Isa de Smit lives alone with her father—a ­master painter—in Amsterdam. Her friends in the Dutch Resistance drop by their home and former art gallery occasionally, but Isa avoids joining them until her best friend Truus draws her into a plot to raise money to rescue Jewish children. Isa duped the Nazis by selling them a forged art piece in the past. Can she do it again—this time with much higher stakes? Things get more complicated when Michel Lange, a handsome Nazi officer, claims to see through her first forgery. In return for his silence, he demands her help in deserting to Switzerland.

In Artifice (Scholastic Press 2023), Sharon Cameron carefully weaves a tale of budding teen romance and ­surprising plot twists, and readers will be eager to find out what happens next. They’ll also enjoy rich historical details along the way, such as Isa’s difficulty in tracking down tools to mimic the brushstrokes of a Rembrandt or Vermeer masterpiece. At times, some of Isa’s interactions with high-ranking Nazi officials may seem hard to believe, but Cameron has done her homework. She loosely bases Isa’s story on the true tales of Johan van Hulst, who saved 600 Jewish children in Amsterdam, and Han Van Meegeren, who sold forged art to Nazi leaders such as Hermann Goering. Fans of Ruta Sepetys’ historical fiction will find Cameron cut from the same cloth (or canvas), though Artifice uniquely includes a kind of colorful poetry ­fitting with the book’s artistic theme.

While this novel is marketed to readers ages 12 to 18, younger teens may want to skip it due to the main character’s occasional cursing and the book’s multiple sexually charged situations, including an early scene where Isa is thought to be a prostitute. Isa also briefly remembers early years in her father’s painting career when he hired models to pose in the nude. The ending does include an action-packed showdown with Nazi officials, but we also learn one supporting character claims to be homosexual, a fact that the author’s note celebrates. Characters authentically wrestle with guilt and pain as they seek to care for others, though Christian readers will notice that they don’t seek God’s help in dealing with those realities.

Still, Artifice is better crafted than most novels, and it clearly promotes pro-life values as well as courage on behalf of society’s weakest members. Ultimately, mature teenage girls and adult women may find Sharon Cameron’s relatively clean and action-packed love story to be a cozy winter treat.

—This review has been corrected to reflect that Johan van Hulst was the person responsible for saving 600 Jewish children in Amsterdam.