What is the secret of the Sphinx?
In 2023 Dubai, Patrick is arrested at his auction of surrealist painting ‘Self Portrait as Sphinx’. In 1991 Cambridge, art history students Caroline and Patrick discover the painting, leading Caroline into a fascination with the artist. And in 1937 Paris, runaway heiress Juliette Willoughby is working on the fateful painting. What she is telling the world will have unintended consequences for all three of their lives.

Just brilliant. Please read.
This book has everything: mystery, glamour, intrigue, academia, love, family, history and crime.

I’ve read ‘The Club’ by Ellery Lloyd and remember enjoying it but this is in a different league.

I don’t mean this to sound in anyway reductive but if ‘The Girl You Left Behind’ and ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ had a (book) baby - it would be this story. I just loved it and could not put it down.

The multiple timelines were never confusing, the prose is elegant and absorbing and I learnt so much about surrealist art. If a book makes me google something and I take knowledge away it will have my heart.

I can’t say anything else without saying everything. Just trust me and preorder immediately.

Thank you to #netgalley and #panmacmillan for my #arc

It took me a while to get into the different time periods of this book, but once I did it was an easy, engaging read. The final twist wasnt a surprise but an enjoyable journey getting there.
Thank you to netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an advance copy of this book

Really enjoyed this book. Loved the time lapse and get me entertained.

Would definitely recommend

A nice and easy book to read - it kept me interested throughout and I really enjoyed it. Thank you to the writer, publisher, and NetGalley for allowing me to review this book.

ARC Review - A real page turner! I wouldn’t normally gravitate towards an art mystery book but this was peppered with a light love story and murder so gets 5 stars from me! A beautiful story told with intrigued and emotion. I’ve already recommended it to friends!

I really enjoyed this story set in 3 time periods. It’s the tale of a painting, believed lost, its artist and the art expert who discovers it and her group of friends. All leading to an explanation of all that had gone on many years before well written delve into the art world with characters that make the reading so engaging. Even if I could sense and know the plot twist before it happened, I really enjoyed the book. I think it is an easy-to-read, well-paced, and engaging read. I need read more of the work of this author

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Lots of coincidences and I did guess the twists but a really good read blending the past with the present

A really unusual read for me but one that was thoroughly enjoyable throughout.
Written beautifully, this was a family saga, wrapped in a thrilling whodunnit spanning three time periods and told mainly from the perspective of two characters.
I felt that, despite being a little long overall, the novel was engaging with gasp-worthy twists thrown in at random.

I really enjoyed this story set in 3 time periods. It’s the tale of a painting, believed lost, its artist and the art expert who discovers it and her group of friends. All leading to an explanation of all that had gone on many years before.
This sounds really dry - but it isn’t, it’s a well written delve into the art world with characters you get to know and care about.
I really enjoyed it.

I loved this book. A perfect addition to the dark academia genre, this novel follows 3 connected timelines; Juliette in the 1930s with the events that lead up to the fateful fire, Caroline and Patrick in 1991 as final year students at Cambridge, trying to uncover the secrets of Juliette’s famous painting, and Caroline and Patrick in the present day, as Patrick is publicly arrested for murder. The plot twists were incredible, and there were points where I audibly gasped or had to cover the page to stop myself from spoiling the suspense. It had very similar vibes to “the maidens” and “in my dreams i hold a knife”, two books which i really love, and i really loved this book too. I will be recommending it to all of my reader friends as the perfect autumnal dark academia mystery

This is the first book I've read by Ellery Lloyd but it won't be my last.
Thoroughly enjoyed this. It's very well written with a superb ending.

This is a fascinating tale of past and present, with plenty of mystery to engage the reader.
I found the treatment of women in the surrealist art movement particularly interesting, and the interweaving of a Paris artist's apartment and a crumbling stately home made for great settings.

If I had a couple of small niggles, they would be that the start was rather slow, the 'voices' of the two students were not sufficiently 'different' (so I had to keep checking who was narrating), and I did spot the key plot twists well before they were revealed.

Despite those points, I did enjoy this and would want to read the author(s) again.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read.

Every once in a while a book comes along that completely blows your mind. For me it's "The final Act of Juliette Willoughby. Told through the perspectives of Patrick and Caroline, two Cambridge undergrads studying History of Art. They decide on a dissertation focusing on Surrealism in particular a woman by the name of Juliette Willoughby. Steered by their supervisor Alice Long, the two commence their research knowing only two things for certain: The artist died with her artist lover Oskar Erlich in a Paris fire and that nothing remains of her work.- or does it. Slowly the two start to unravel mysteries and secrets stretching back to 1920's. The earlier decades are through the perspective of the artist herself aided at times by her diaries and we get a sense of the scene in Paris.
Lloyd is at her best as she re-creates the atmosphere of the 1938 International exhibition of surrealism in Paris. The reader literally walks through the layout observing the great artists as they prepare for their showing. We see the intense jealousy and misogyny surrounding the world of art as it paints out the contributions of women. This snobbery and jealousy is mirrored in Cambridge with their secret societies and sense of who belongs.
This is an impeccable story delivered with such care,skill you name it. Thank you NetGalley : perfection

By far one of the most thrilling mysteries I have read. It grips from start to finish, a very clever tale. 5 stars

What an absolute banger! I've read all of Ellery Lloyd's previous novels and this one, I think, is their very best yet. A perfect summer read

Thank you to the author, publishers Macmillan and NetGalley UK for access to this as an advance reader’s ebook. This is an honest and voluntary review.

There are only two things people know about the Surrealist painter Juliette Willoughby - that she died in a fire with her more famous artist lover, and that none of her artwork survives. But, when two art students begin to study Juliette they find there may be darker secrets beyond the story everyone knows. Secrets that are still having repercussions decades later.

A richly detailed absorbing mystery. I loved the depth of the characters, the overlapping timelines, the reveals, the secrets which remained hidden.

One of the things I always love about Ellery Lloyd stories is the roundedness and balance of the characters. No one’s perfect, everyone is nuanced, and it’s delivered so convincingly. And that’s more true than ever in this latest book. The three main characters that the story is told through, Juliette, Patrick and Caroline, are all fully breathing and formed characters.

The plotting is also exquisite. I felt fully immersed and felt every heart in mouth moment of potential discovery or worried that the innocent would suffer for the sins of others. Exquisite.

A gripping mystery that begins in the 1920s in an English stately home then escapes to 1930s, Paris, rubbing shoulders with the Surrealists, with immersive details of life for Juliette Willoughby as a talented artist. (I loved the way art was written about so knowledgeably). Then to 1990s academic Cambridge where we meet a young Patrick and Caroline, navigating a potentially sensational art history find. Snobbery, machinations, boys from boarding school who form a backdrop to this timeline sharpen the readers sense not quite fitting in or belonging. Then we are flown to modern-day Dubai, a complex, money-obsessed and competitive country where nothing is as it seems. Intricately plotted, fast paced and vivid, this intelligent book kept me reading late into the night. A must read.

They say that the best English novels are the stories of families, and so it is with The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby. A twisty, dark and disturbing gothic thriller, time-arcing between the garrets of bohemian Paris in the 1930’s, to the dreamy academic colleges of Cambridge and decadent ‘Saltburn’ type stately homes in the 1990’s, then climaxing in present day Dubai, this is the epic story of a grand but damaged aristocratic family in turmoil and the innocent lives they carelessly change for ever.

Fast moving, with narrators alternating between the different time spans, The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a totally gripping and entertaining read from start to finish. I was devastated when I reached the end and I honestly believe that it’s not often that such a skilful and satisfying book is published. It is hopefully destined to become a classic, in the vein of ‘Rebecca’ and ‘Brideshead Revisited’.

Many thanks to all concerned for allowing me to read and review this terrific novel.

4.5 stars rounded up. Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC.
Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this book. Told via 3 timelines (1930s, 1990s and current day) with multiple points of view this is an involved tale of murder, dysfunctional families, art and dark academia - with a little bit of bonkers Egyptology thrown in for good measure. There are a number of twists which I did more or less guess before they were revealed but this was still a very satisfying read. If you enjoyed books such asThe Secret History, If We Were Villains and Possession, and films such as Saltburn, then you will probably devour this novel.

Very enjoyable tale.
I liked the mystery of the painting, and what it represented, and how it came to be lost.
There were plenty of surprises along the way.
A well crafted book that had me racing through the final parts.
I NEEDED to know everything.
I've enjoyed Lloyd before, but I'd say this is their best yet.