I Am You : **Good Housekeeping Good Reads Winner as voted for by readers**

"Spellbinding, wonderfully atmospheric, and impossible to forget"Sarah Jessica Parker

"With echoes of Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep, I am You is earthy and fleshy and pulsates with suppressed emotions of rage, envy and desire."Elizabeth Fremantle

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.

Author: Victoria Redel

Romance, Historical fiction, Feminism & feminist theory, Gay & Lesbian studies

Published on 10 Sep 2026 by Firefinch Publishing.