Girl Reading

An orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena and an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles.

A woman reading in a Shoreditch bar catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture and a Victorian medium holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure.

“'A real wow of a first novel. The premise is alarmingly simple and yet somehow stunning: seven portraits, seven artists, seven girls and women reading . . . A wonderful, imaginative evocation of seven different worlds . . . It's very rare for a novel to have a real freshness and originality but at the same time to evoke echoes of other literary memories. This feels incredibly clever. It's a book packed full of adventures and stories and you completely lose yourself in them . . . This book's great strength: the perfect, separate, involving worlds it creates. Like Mitchell, Ward is equally adept at shifting between completely different registers and voices . . . It [has] real beating heart . . . It will be fascinating to see what she writes next' Viv Groskop, The TimesA debut of rare individuality and distinction. Katie Ward inhabits each of her seven eras with a fluent and intuitive touch, and sentence by sentence, deft and mercurial, she surpasses the readers' expectations. What is set down on the page has a rich and allusive hinterland, so that the reader's imagination has a space to work, and what is unsaid has its own fascination. The writing is alive with fresh and startling perceptions' Hilary Mantel”

A real wow of a first novel. The premise is alarmingly simple and yet somehow stunning: seven portraits, seven artists, seven girls and women reading... A wonderful, imaginative evocation of seven different worlds... It's very rare for a novel to have a real freshness and originality but at the same time to evoke echoes of other literary memories. This feels incredibly clever. It's a book packed full of adventures and stories and you completely lose yourself in them... This book's great strength: the perfect, separate, involving worlds it creates. Like Mitchell, Ward is equally adept at shifting between completely different registers and voices... It [has] real beating heart... It will be fascinating to see what she writes next. - Viv Groskop, The Times

A debut of rare individuality and distinction. Katie Ward inhabits each of her seven eras with a fluent and intuitive touch, and sentence by sentence, deft and mercurial, she surpasses the reader's expectations. - Hilary Mantel

Katie Ward was born in Somerset in 1979. She has worked in the public and voluntary sectors, including at a women's refuge and for a Member of Parliament. Katie lives in Suffolk with her husband and cat.

'Ward is wise, poised, and utterly original. Her eye and her words are fresh, as if she is inventing the world' Hilary Mantel An orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena, and an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles. In a Victorian photography studio, a woman holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure, and in a Shoreditch bar in 2008 a woman reading catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture. 'A wonderful , imaginative evocation . . . It's a book packed full of adventures and stories and you completely lose yourself in them as Ward races through time from the 1300s and into the future . . . Like David Mitchell, Ward is equally adept at shifting between completely different registers and voices . . . Girl Reading has real beating heart' Viv Groskop, The Times 'A lively, irreverent journey through history' Katie Allen, Time Out Book of the Week 'If you're planning to pack any holiday books this year, make sure Girl Reading is one of them' Cosmopolitan

An orphan poses nervously for a Renaissance maestro in medieval Siena and an artist's servant girl in seventeenth-century Amsterdam snatches a moment away from her work to lose herself in tales of knights and battles.A woman reading in a Shoreditch bar catches the eye of a young man who takes her picture and a Victorian medium holds a book that she barely acknowledges while she waits for the exposure.

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