Book excerpt: She was known only as Marie. Her story has perplexed art historians for the decades since American Impressionist painters flocked to the French village of Giverny, as they followed the path of its famous artist-in-residence Claude Monet. Marie was the favorite model of one of those painters, Theodore Robinson, whose untimely death at the age of 43 eclipsed his legacy as one of the greatest American painters of his day.This is the tale - part true, part imagined - of Theodore and Marie, set in Giverny, where author Rebecca Bricker captures the life and spirit of a thriving artists' colony at the turn of the last century. In The Secret of Marie, Monet's Giverny is the backdrop for a modern-day love story between a French architect and an American writer who meet at an ancient moulin in the village. Their romance conjures up the secret of an artist from Vermont and his Parisian model who left an indelible mark, tinged with mystery, on the history of American Impressionism.