The Artist
Escape to Provence with the most anticipated historical novel of 2025
Author: Lucy Steeds
An intense summer of love, lies and the promise of freedom, set in Provence in 1920.
13th January 2025
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
An intense summer of love, lies and the promise of freedom, set in Provence in 1920.
Description
All Joseph wants is to be let into Tartuffe's world. All Ettie wants is to escape it.
The year is 1920. The place is a remote farmhouse in Provence, home to the reclusive painter Edouard Tartuffe and his niece, Ettie. Into this strange, silent house walks Joseph: a young journalist hoping to write an article about Tartuffe. But the more he entangles himself in the peculiar household, the more Joseph's curiosity grows . . .Ettie cooks and cleans for her uncle. She prepares his studio, scrubs his paintbrushes, and creates the perfect environment for him to work. She has never gone further than the local village. She is sharp-eyed and watchful. But beneath her cool exterior, Joseph senses something simmering. Ettie, Joseph and Tartuffe circle each other throughout the hot, crackling summer, until finally they collide.The Artist is about two people grabbing the other by the hand and pulling each other into life.Critic Reviews
Sensuous and brooding Bookseller
Lucy Steeds transports the reader with her sensuous depictions of food, art, and landscape . . . an assured and atmospheric debut about creativity, female agency, and the legacy of war -- Sarah Perry, author of THE ESSEX SERPENT
A furiously romantic, sun-drenched mystery about the violent power of good art. The Artist will leave you yearning in every sense of the word -- Yael van der Wouden, author of THE SAFEKEEP
The Artist is an intoxicating tale of creativity, possession and freedom told by the alternate voices of a young English writer and a French woman who have been drawn into the orbit of a celebrated but reclusive artist. As they circle around him during one hot summer in Provence, both his secrets and theirs slowly come into the light. This is a compelling, beautifully textured and impressively assured debut about the risks we take to get what we want, a novel which asks questions about all those who are painted over by history -- Joanna Quinn, author of THE WHALEBONE THEATRE
Gorgeous . . . Steeped in the heat and atmosphere of 1920s Provence, this novel brims with intrigue, hope and yearning. The questions it asks will linger with me: about authenticity, about what it means to be an artist and to long to leave a mark on the world -- Elizabeth Macneal, author of THE DOLL FACTORY and THE BURIAL PLOT
Phenomenal . . . beautiful, pacey historical fiction, vividly realised. It drifts with the scent of summer, the land lit up and throbbing, the food piled high and richly painted, the paint as thick and buttery as food. I wanted to eat it. Yes, I even wanted to eat the paint. Read this book! -- Seth Insua, author of HUMAN, ANIMAL
I could not love this beautiful novel more . . . the final chapters left me with that delicious heart-bursting feeling, full of hope and delight -- Florence Knapp, author of THE NAMES
About the Author
Lucy is a graduate of both the Faber Academy and the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. She began writing The Artist while living in France, and currently splits her time between London and Amsterdam. The Artist has been listed for the BPA First Novel Award, the Yeovil Literary Prize, the Page Turner Awards, the Fiction Factory First Chapter Competition, and was a Finalist in the Spotlight First Novel Award and the Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer Award. Lucy herself has synaesthesia and uses this to play with ways of translating images into words. She has a BA in English Literature and a Masters in World Literatures from the University of Oxford.
Product Details
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13th January 2025
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