The Artist begins in 1957 with a woman gazing at a painting she knows intimately in London’s National Gallery before winding back to the summer of 1920 when a young art journalist travels to Provence, hoping to interview the renowned and notoriously reclusive Edouard Tartuffe. He’s somewhat taken aback when the irascible artist demands that he model for a portrait, brusquely agreeing that Joseph can write about him in return. Tata's every need is attended to by Ettie, so self-effacing Joesph barely notices her at first. Ettie has hardly left the remote farmhouse where she and her uncle live, filled with a longing to experience the world and explore the talent her uncle has done his best to squash. As the summer wears on, Joseph unravels a perplexing mystery and Ettie sees a way for her talent to be recognised.
Steeds’ debut is gorgeously immersive, the summer Provencal landscape and the food it produces vividly evoked. Her descriptions of art are arresting as you might expect from a writer whose day job is lecturing on the subject. The novel’s overarching theme is the age-old dismissal of women’s artistic talent, still alive and kicking in the early twentieth century, skilfully explored through gripping storytelling, replete with small reveals, including a very satisfying one following a scene in which a female collector puts her boorish male companions firmly in their ignorant place. Clever title, too. I'm keen to see what Steeds comes up with next.

The book that I have just finished reading is a book set in the French countryside and follows an aspiring journalist, Joseph, who gets invited by his favourite artist to travel to his home and write an article on him, or so he believes. When Joseph arrives he finds that the artist had no idea he was coming and he was in fact invited by the artists niece, Ettie. They reach a deal however. Joseph can stay and write his article if he agree’s to be the artists model.

I can’t tell you what drew me to this book. It’s been a while since I’ve browsed through NetGalley and I saw this one in the general fiction section and something about it just stood out to me. Without knowing too much about it I requested it and started reading it soon after I got accepted and it had me in it’s grasp from page one.

This book is so full of intrigue and it’s so steadily paced. Throughout it has these little reveals that keeps the story going and keeps making you want to turn the page. It’s a very isolated setting so you get to know these characters quite intimately and by the end I found I had come to really care about them, especially Ettie.

Through Ettie, Steeds explores a women’s place in an artists world. This is historical fiction set post WWI which is one of my favourite eras to read about anyway, and a very interesting time in the feminist movement. Steeds explores a very Virginia Woolf, Room of One’s Own feminist message which I think made me love this book even more. I’ve read books like this before where authors make the creative decision to keep these female characters silent and in the background to reflect their situation. Steeds wasn’t afraid to make this Ettie’s story, give her a voice, a fire in her belly.

“When nobody is looking she can do as she pleases, living in the freedom that comes when other peoples eyes are turned away.”

There is also a beautiful romance that blossoms and a mystery with a very satisfying conclusion. This book has a lot of heart to it and it is written with a beautiful tenderness. Steeds has a way with words and it makes me quite sad that this is her first novel. I am impatiently waiting for her to write more, and her debut hasn’t even been officially released yet.

“It is she who commissions the frame and returns a week later to carry it home, slung over he shoulder as if she herself is a painting.”

I was consumed by this novel from the first few pages. Set in the isolation of a rural home in Provence, France, the characters of Tata, Ettie and Joseph are so convincingly depicted.

Beautiful atmospheric and brimming with life and light and energy, the author's writing is vivid and polished.

Perfectly plotted, from beginning to end there was never a relief to the relentless pace.

I highly recommend The Artist.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

It's been over two days since I've finished "The Artist" by Lucy Steeds and I'm still lost for words... This book is a masterpiece and have raised my standards so high that I'm afraid to start another book (and that ladies and gentlemen was never a problem). I'm not going to share a blurb, as if you are looking at my review, you've probably saw it and would scroll down anyway, and if you haven't I hope what I have to say will make you to look it up for yourself.
Main characters are Ettie, Tata(Eduard) and Joseph. Everything takes place in 1920s Provence. Let me stop here for a moment. The writing style and language used, takes you, my dear reader, to France, whether you want it or not. Descriptions of meadows, streams, wind in your hair along with smells of flowers or rotten food are so perfect, that you can feel it as if you would stand beside any character or look at everything through their eyes.
Let's move to Ettie or Sylvette if you wish. She represents, for me anyway, every woman that had dreams squished or pushed into a corner by a family member or society in general but despite it, she still keeps the flame going and slowly builds it up into a roaring fire.
I feel like no matter what words I'm going to use, they'll never be enough and won't give this book a justice. It's impeccably crafted, epic in every sense of the word and one that you'll lose yourself in.
Massive thanks to Netgalley to provide me the early copy in exchange for an honest review

I absolutely loved this book. Beautifully written, it slowly unfolded until I was engrossed, impatient to see how it all played out.
Joseph, a writer, is sent from London to discover the secrets of the famous artist Tartuffe, who lives a reclusive life in the south of France. However, it soon becomes clear that his niece, Ettie, is the real person of interest and the story is hers. The reader gradually learns her history, her secrets and her desires in this compelling novel.
The sense of place, time, atmosphere and landscape were all brilliantly evoked, and I was drawn into Ettie's world, thoroughly invested in her story.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy.

Beautiful, tense, sensuous, edible, enthralling, and mind-opening. This was absolutely delicious and delicately poignant at the same time, from the simmering descriptions of Southern France to the tender exploration of hearts and minds in the aftermath of World War I. With a twisty, gripping story and a spiky but fascinating heroine, it's a page turner that also gives you time to think new thoughts: about who really makes art, about how women are forced to occupy unexpected spaces, and about freedom. Thanks to Netgalley and John Murray for an eARC. Can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy.

If January starts with such a brilliant book then I am hoping that all of 2025 will be an amazing reading year.

I fell in love with all the main characters in this book, even the irascible Tata. The writing was so vivid that I could feel the heat of the French summer and smell all of the food that was being painted. The art was described so vividly that I thought this was a book fictionalising a 'real' artist and was already half planning a trip to the National Gallery.
I very much liked how the trauma of WW1 was woven into the book, and how the bravery of all the characters involved was showcased. It was also refreshing that the book ended before the 2nd world war and the occupation of France, the tight timeline really worked for me.

1920 Provence and Joseph, a young art columnist from England arrives at the home of reclusive artist Edouard Tartuffe, thinking he’s been granted an interview. He finds a grumpy, white bearded eccentric who is not happy to see him, and his shy young niece Ettie who he depends upon.

So you may be thinking, is this one of those novels? Is our wrong heroine going to be rescued from her claustrophobic life? Well let me tell you, young Ettie does not need rescuing and (no spoilers here) she’s found a way to show the world her talents.

The characters in this debut - Joseph, Tartuffe and Ettie - are so exquisitely drawn, and the back stories are wonderful. However Ettie is the star of the show. The art, the food, the descriptions- it’s all so vivid. A book hasn’t moved me this much in a long time. If you loved Sarah Winman’s Still Life, I think you’ll love this. It may be half the length, but boy does it pack a punch.

I loved this book. It’s beautiful, luminous and the writing is evocatively crafted. Like Provence, where it takes place, the novel is full of life, light, passion and captures even the scent and dust of a hot summer.

Young British journalist Joseph travels to the south of France to interview the reclusive and tyrannically aging artist Tartuffe. What Joseph doesn’t expect is to meet Ettie, the artist's niece who is treated nearly as a slave by her dominant uncle. As the heat of summer grows and pressure builds passion alights burning secrets long held.

The chapters alternate between Joseph and Ettie. At first I thought this was going to be Joseph's story, but really it’s Ettie’s story that lights the way.
I won’t say anything more other than to highly recommend reading this beautiful novel. It will linger in your heart for days and weeks after.

My thanks to John Murray Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What is art? Is it a copy of what your eyes see? Is it the depiction of a feeling, something that’s deep inside your heart? And can love have different faces but still be love? Where do life’s paths change direction almost imperceptibly?

Lucy’s novel is the story of the well respected but reclusive artist called Edouard Tartuffe (‘Tata’), his niece, Ettie and Joseph, a visitor to their home in 1920s Provence.

Tata and Ettie live cut off from the world, Ettie serving Tata’s every need from cooking, cleaning to helping him out in his studio. She has done this pretty much from the day her mother left, when she was just seven and Tata has been her source of knowledge for everything. Tata feels he has been good to Ettie, taking care of her but he is also volatile and obsessive. And where would one be without the other?

Still, Ettie dreams of being seen for who she is but every time she has ever tried to gain any form of recognition, she has been rebuffed. But can a flame burning in your heart ever be put out? Because Ettie “wants to run. To erupt, shimmering, into the world, to feel all its glorious textures under her fingertips. To grab it, to hold it in the plan of her hand and never let it go. She wants to taste life and bite it.”

So when Ettie reads Joseph’s letter asking if he can come and observe the famous Tartuffe in action and write about the unseen artistic genius, she senses something in Joseph’s words and replies just with one word: ‘Come’. And this one word starts the story of three hot summer months set in Provence, a story that will change everything.

A beautiful character driven novel filled with love, with secrets, with questions about who we are and where life can take us. The book just felt alive in my hands if that makes sense! I cannot quite put into words how much I love this book! I know now that it will be one of my favourites of 2025 and I am so grateful for my digital ARC but will need to order this in hard copy as it is a book I want to hold in my hand and keep!

What a treat awaits readers who haven’t read “The Artist” yet. The book tells the story of a young man, Joseph, who comes to Provence on the invitation of a reclusive artist, Tartuffe (Tata). During the sweltering summer months, he comes under the household’s strange influence, as he tries to understand the imposing man and his mysterious niece, Ettie, who moves through the house like a quiet, invisible ghost. As the tension grows, the stifling atmosphere described by the author becomes more oppressive and threatens to burn everything in its way. The way Lucy Steeds writes about the weather, food, paintings is so vivid and descriptive that I was transported into the book every time I read a chapter – into the studio, with its smells of turpentine and paints, into the fields full of flowers and olive trees, to the dining table, where the food is chosen for its unusual shape and colour not for its taste, where peaches burst with juice, ripe tomatoes and slippery fish serve as props. I was transported into the world of Tata and Ettie, where Tata is the ruler of the house, and all need to bend under his tyranny. But the book also tells the story of Ettie, and the struggle of women to be recognised and celebrated as artists in their own right. What starts as a story of two men, becomes – subversively – a story of a woman. Lucy Steeds paints a beautiful, evocative story of three characters, who move within the frames of a confined space so clearly visualised it can be almost smelt, touched, heard. And through the book, the passion that cannot be confined and that burns bright enough to catch fire.

I think this might be the best book I've read this year. It was so beautiful and moving, I loved every high and low of this wonderfully crafted book. The pace is wonderfully unhurried, as Steeds expertly weaves together art and the long shadow cast by the First World War.

Steeds' writing is so transporting I could feel the paint under my fingers and the dust in the air. This book is so confidently written that even those with the most basic knowledge of art will feel completely emersed this story. Steeds delves expertly into what it means to be an artist, how our relationships with the people around us shape our perspectives of ourselves and of the world. She has completely captured a moment, I feel as if I have seen the paintings, the photographs, the farmhouse, the food.

Honestly I just loved this book so much. I think it is wonderful and I am so immensely grateful to NetGalley, John Murray Press and Lucy Steeds for the free ebook ARC of this novel. I highly recommend it to everyone when it comes out on the 30th January 2025.

Pure artistry: the characters and story drive the reader on, on, on, caught up in the tactile imagery and relationships. A feast of possession, passion, denial, secrets – and food, the decaying images of which reflect both the artist’s talent and view of life. But which artist? The enigmatic and cryptic Ettie is fascinating; the self-effacing Joseph, so eager to please and unravel the mystery surrounding Tartuffe; Tartuffe, The Master of Light, disagreeable, selfish, fearful. Each with demons to secrete. A wonderful read, scintillating and absorbing, unputtable down.