Given how closely Tracy Chevalier's The Lady And The Unicorn mimics her first bestseller (Girl With A Pearl Earring) in tone, theme, and detail, it's astounding how dissimilar the two books are in everything but readability. Like Pearl Earring, The Lady And The Unicorn is a historical novel of sorts, set in a past that's differentiated from the present mostly through its characters' quotidian lives rather than their personalities or mindsets. Also like Pearl Earring, The Lady And The Unicorn lays out the fictional history of a real-life artwork, filling in a rich backstory where actual scholarship turns up only vague details. Chevalier's latest book centers on six famous and much-reproduced 15th-century tapestries depicting women flanked by lions, unicorns, and the coat of arms of Jean Le Viste. Her version of their creation begins with Nicolas des Innocents, a lecherous, self-absorbed painter commissioned to illustrate a series of gigantic battle tapestries for Jean, but suborned by Jean's wife Geneviève, who wants a less aggressive and martial theme. While lusting after Geneviève's daughter Claude, Nicolas strives to create a design that flatters mother and daughter alike, while simultaneously appealing to Jean's social-climbing ambitions and still incorporating some autonomous aesthetic. Where Pearl Earring stuck to one point of view, Unicorn follows an associational daisy chain, presenting chapters from the perspective of Nicolas, Claude, and Geneviève in turn, then continuing the story through Georges de la Chapelle, the weaver responsible for converting Nicolas' designs into physical artworks. Georges' daughter, wife, and apprentice get their own chapters, as well, as Chevalier uses the linear progression of the tapestries' creation as a window into a series of lives in which love and lust compete with survival imperatives and rigid societal roles—again, much as they did in Pearl Earring. Compared to that book's stark, narrow focus, Unicorn's multi-character structure seems dangerously ambitious, particularly given the book's spare 250-page length. But Chevalier keeps her story running smoothly by sticking to basics, moving over the surfaces of events, and touching only lightly on their meanings, without getting bogged down in excessive historical or personal detail. Her characters sometimes seem shallow, but she brings them into conflict with a deft and succinct touch, and the details she does provide (guild regulations, the smell of woad, the process of tapestry design and manufacture) are all the more fascinating for their rarity. Chevalier's worlds aren't exactly immersive; they're neither broad enough nor deep enough to get lost in. But like the artwork she writes about, they're fascinating portraits, aesthetically pleasing at a casual glance but well worth more careful examination.