Everyone knows that all good things must come to an end.

Which makes the heartbreak of finishing Lara Vapnyar’s debut novel, Memoirs of a Muse, easier to bear.

The story revolves around Tanya, a sensitive girl from Moscow who believes it’s her destiny to play muse to a great man — someone like her favorite writer, Dostoevsky. As a teen, she experiments with various boys to gain experience for her future work. When she graduates from college, she moves to New York and meets Mark Schneider, an important novelist (at least in his own mind).

The romance begins, and the ever-helpful Tonya keeps a diary documenting the historical moments lived by the brilliant writer and the woman who inflames his imagination.

Of course, things don’t quite turn out as our heroine would like. But Vapnyar still turns out a sexy, poignant novel.

And that’s only the beginning.

Available online at amazon.com or at your local bookstore.