The Painter's Daughters: The award-winning debut novel selected for BBC Radio 2 Book Club

In 1759 Ipswich, sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends, but Molly has a tendency to forget who she is and fall into mental confusion. When the family moves to Bath, Peggy falls in love and must question everything she has done for her sister. This is a moving exploration of familial ties and the grief of a life half-lived.

Format: Hardback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 29 February 2024
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co

Selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, Winner of the MSLEXIA Novel Competition

Beautifully written.

I raced through it.

HILARY MANTEL

As exquisitely and tenderly rendered as a Gainsborough painting.

TRACY CHEVALIER

A wonderfully powerful and haunting novel with a hugely gripping plot.

DEBORAH MOGGACH

1759, Ipswich.

Sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends and do everything together.

They spy on their father as he paints, they rankle their mother as she manages the books, they tear barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home.

But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly has had a tendency to forget who she is, to fall into mental confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out.

When the family move to Bath, the sisters are thrown into the whirl of polite society, where the merits of marriage and codes of behaviour are crystal clear, and secrets much harder to keep.

As Peggy goes to greater lengths to protect her sister from the threat of an asylum, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off course.

The discovery of a betrayal forces Peggy to question all she has done for Molly - and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another.

A moving exploration of the familial ties that bind us and the grief of a life half-lived.

ELIZABETH MACNEAL

Vividly imagined and exquisitely brought to the page.

RACHEL JOYCE

A beautiful debut

JO BROWNING WROE

Weight: 608g
Dimension: 164 x 241 x 35 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781399610780