Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. The Sunday Times bestseller. A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year.
PROVENCE, 1920.
Joseph, conscientious objector and aspiring journalist, has been invited to a remote farmhouse. He is convinced he'll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe.
Ettie moves through the house, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle's artistic genius possible.
But Ettie is ready to be seen. Even if it means setting her world on fire.
This summer, everyone's true colours will be revealed.
Praise
“A furiously romantic, sun-drenched mystery.” — Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep
“The Artist uncovers its secrets by stealth.” — Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year
“Seductive.” — Guardian
“Transporting.” — Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent
“I can't imagine a better book to escape with.” — Stylist
“Left me with that delicious heart-bursting feeling, full of hope and delight.” — Florence Knapp, author of The Names
About the author
Lucy Steeds announced herself with this debut — a novel of art, heat and hidden labour that swept from prize shortlists to the bestseller lists. For readers of The Safekeep, Maggie O'Farrell's The Marriage Portrait, and Charlotte Mendelson's art-world novels.
Why we love it
A painting of a summer — the light, the heat, the meals, the silences — wrapped around a slow-burning question: who really makes a genius possible? The answer arrives like a struck match.
