The Artist

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

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.

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