When Griet becomes a maid in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond. Girl with a Pearl Earring is a modern classic - an extraordinary novel on the corruption of innocence and the price of genius. "It has a slow, magical current of its own that picks you up and carries you stealthily along... A beautiful story, lovingly told by a very talented writer"