Fascinating book about a fascinating woman - Alma Mahler is portrayed as passionate and torn, though sometimes naive. While a lot of her story is about her romantic life, I didn't take this as a romantic book : Her sacrifice, giving up composing for love, is too sad, too tragic and left me with a bittersweet feel of "what if..."

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a very well-written, and apparently well- researched piece of historic fiction. Alma Mahler was clearly a fascinating person, and I wish I'd been more knowledgeable about her while she was still alive. I'm more art oriented, and less music oriented, so I requested this book because of the Klimt reference, and there wasn't enough of that story for me.
Personally, I think it's time to step away from historic fiction for a while, or else I have to be careful which time periods I select, as those with the very restrictive, tedious roles for women, are tedious for me to read. This is not a flaw with this author or book at all, it's simply personal preference.
One note - this is not chaste historic fiction. Intimate scenes are a bit steamier, almost romance-novel-like, than I expected.

Gustav Klimt wanted to paint her, wanted to claim her body, as she was proclaimed one of the most beautiful girls in Vienna. Steeped in early 20th century gender bias, we see the beginning of a bohemian lifestyle for artistic women. Having fallen in love with Alex von Zeminsky who was giving her counterpoint lessons, she was forbidden by her parents to marry a Jew. However, it was Gustav Mahler, who was a successful composer and director of the Viennese Court Opera and Jewish as well, who claimed her for himself, marrying her even though he was 19 years older. Yet the marriage left her with many doubts as she, a composer in her own right, accepted his proposal with the condition that she give up her composing. Over the years, with the birth of their two daughters and the loss of one of them, Alma not only feels the loss of her own creativity, but resents Mahler for denying her the one thing she loves and yearns for, composing. The couple leave Vienna with the strain of anti-Semitism that has taken hold of the city and the fact that Mahler is no longer the once loved composer and director of the Viennese Court Opera. Fleeing to New York Mahler becomes the first principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and then the New York Philharmonic. But matters worsen with Alma having a nervous breakdown and Mahler diagnosed with a heart condition. While taking a rest cure at the sanatorium, Alma meets Walter Gropius as 27 year old architect. Once again she is conflicted between her desires.

This novel explores the difficulty women had in expressing themselves artistically at a time in history when they were nothing more than chattels. It was just the beginning of the Bohemian lifestyle and the female gender had a long way to go. As always with historical fiction, while it is interesting to read, you enter a different era and there is much to learn, always fascinating.

Ms. Sharratt has given us, the reader, a wonderful novel. Bravo and thank you. I wish to thank NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am going to chalk this one up to it was just me, but I didn’t love this book. I have read and enjoyed most of Mary Sharratt’s other books, but this one was not my favorite. Maybe it was the time period, or the subject, but I was not really into it.

“Let’s raise our glasses to Alma Maria Schindler, Fran Zuckerandl said, who has turned the rest of us poor women emerald with envy. Not only is she the most beautiful girl in Vienna, and that’s quite bad enough, she’s also a brilliant pianist. That’s infuriating. But on top of it all, she composes!”

Alma’s mother was pregnant with Alma ‘before’ she married her famous painter father, Jakob Schindler. She tells Alma that she ‘had’ to get married. Alma was in love with a man named Alex Zeminsky - a poor man. Alma’s mother literally forbid her daughter to choose her own husband.....she did everything she could to stop the romance between she and Alex. Her mother told Alma about her childhood of poverty, and the financial struggles during the early years of marriage to her father.
Alma ‘was’ conflicted. The pressure of how Alma should live her live was constant.

Mother had two wishes for Alma:
1- that she didn’t marry for money without love
2- that she didn’t marry for love without money.

Alma had two wishes for herself:
1- that she didn’t have to sacrifice her art for Love
2- that she didn’t have to sacrifice love for for art.

Alma wanted to give herself completely to a man and she wanted to give yourself completely to music. She wished to be a composer - of the great symphonies. She had the talent and practiced diligently.

At age 19, when Alma received her first kiss by Gustav Klimt- it was so passionate- physically- and soulfully - ( the author did a lovely job conveying this young girls ‘awakening’ experience of lust & passion)....that Alma knew that to deny herself a life without love would be as painful as to deny herself with music ( which was already her lustful passion).
Having ‘both’ - love and her independence to follow her dreams - as a female in the 19th/20th century, was a complicated matter.
The man she married - Gustav Mahler- wanted her to regard his music, be his wife, but not his colleague. He didn’t want Alma to be a composer because he was one.
Alma knew if she married him, and carried on composing behind his back, it would still destroy her creative spirit.
Alma’s final thinking - before marrying Mahler.... was is that the only way there was any hope of distinguishing herself and doing anything remarkable at all in life was to marry a great man and share his destiny. I WANTED TO DIE AT THIS MOMENT in the novel....scream at Alma. I saw her spirit breaking - understood her thinking -but was sad.
Much more storytelling to come — and tensions keep building.

The book is about 400 pages - but reading flies by. I knew next to nothing about Alma Mahler and her excruciating battles of the times both from society & those closest to her. I learned a lot and enjoyed the journey.

I absolutely loved reading this historical novel. I was transported back to this period. There’s interesting history, personal storytelling, drama, passion, Love, conflicts, and the music. Just delightful!

Thank You to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Netgalley, and Mary Sharratt

I really liked this book! I am rather new to Historical Fiction, but this book captured and kept my attention! I went in knowing next to nothing about Alma Mahler, thanks to this book I have independently researched the Mahlers. It made me want to go to the symphony! I highly recommend this book.

Thank you Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC.

Meet Alma Maria Schindler, on the verge of womanhood, desperate to make a life for herself. A bohemian soul in a bourgeois almost all-male society. She has a dream, but no plan, yet somehow the stars align and she meets the men who could make it happen. First Klimt, then Zemlinsky, then Mahler. She makes her choice, and marries Mahler, which almost destroys her.
Throughout this marvel of a book I had a hard time liking the man, not even after he admitted his wrongs. Luckily, it all works out in the end and through waves of emotion Alma becomes her own woman.
I enjoyed the writer's notes attached, giving more insight in Alma's life after this story. A strong woman indeed.
If there is one book everyone should read in 2018 it's Ecstasy.
Exquisite writing, interesting subject, history lesson. A true gem!

A fascinating look at Alma Mahler née Schindler, the wife of Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel, three creative geniuses. Alma was a daughter, sister, mother, composer, muse and femme fatale and a women way ahead of her time trying to find her own creative and personal voice. A wonderful read.

This novel oozes with passion. Passion for music, life and love. The author provides us with a glimpse of society life in Vienna and the dreams and expectations of those living it. I cannot remember reading a book that so successfully exhibited the emotional turmoil in a character. As the novel progresses, there was a distinct shift in Alma's personality once she made the decisions that would define her life. Alma's music made her whole and only physical passion provided her with that same level of completeness. It was somewhat tormenting to read the struggles of Alma as she tried to balance the loves of her life while attempting to comply with society's expectations. I didn't want it to end.

“Don’t you know that another person can also be a paradise?” Our protagonist Alma asks us in reference to her relationships with men. This book relates the story of Alma Maria Schindler-Mahler, admired by Gustav Klimt and Gustav Mahler. She is a strong female lead in an era of not very strong female characters. I greatly enjoyed the insight into the mind of a working composer and could tell that this novel was very closely researched in depth.
The descriptions were rich and transporting, and as in many of her books previously, Sharratt leads us to a place rife with imagery and color. I found myself googling reform dresses and the art of Klimt as well as listening to Mahler's symphonies while reading. I was not familiar with Schindler's work before, having only hear some Mahler and seen the work of Klimt, but I was glad that this book brought a focus to a wonderful composer that I would never have been familiar with otherwise.
A truly enchanting book for a wonderful story.
This book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Alma Schindler was considered by many to be the most beautiful woman in Vienna, she was loved, courted, painted and written about by Gustav Klimt, Franz Werfel and Gustav Mahler, to name a few. And that is the image history has left us with, but Alma was much more than a pretty woman, as Sharratt explains. In a time when women are yearning to break free of the stereotypical molds cast for them, Alma dreamed of becoming a composer. But the man she loves, composer, Gustav Mahler insists she put away what he considers her ridiculous dreams, leaving her to choose between him and her desire to write her own music. Sharratt is one of my favorite authors, she makes history come alive and breathes real life into people and places long gone