The Artist and the Feast

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 • WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE WINNER 2025
 

• "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, international bestselling author of The Essex Serpent
• "A furiously romantic, sun-drenched mystery about the violent power of good art. The Artist and the Feast will leave you yearning in every sense of the word."
  Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize finalist and author of The Safekeep
• "The Artist and the Feast 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, New York Times bestselling 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, international bestselling author of The Doll Factory and The Burial Plot
• "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, New York Times bestselling author of The Names
• "The Artist and the Feast is a lush, impressive debut; the writing is rich and sensuous, especially in descriptions of food, the landscape and the act of creation. Lucy Steeds, a graduate of the Faber Academy, is one to watch."
  The Times, Best Historical Fiction of 2025
• "The stifling Provence landscape and the visceral nature of creating and consuming art are evoked beautifully . . . Steeds command of language is dexterous and powerful . . . a hugely accomplished portrait of ambition and self-fulfillment."
  Observer
• "A sultry, headily perfumed portrait of monstrous male egos and oppressed overlooked women . . . The Artist and the Feast uncovers its secrets by stealth."
  Telegraph
• "Enthralling . . . the descriptions of the landscape, the meals they eat and the art created are so rich and evocative it's as if you're there."
  Good Housekeeping
• "A blaze of a book, poetic, passionate and quietly powerful."
  Daily Mail
• "Beautiful . . . Steeds uses vivid, sensory language to evoke the sultriness of a summer in Provence and the tyranny of living with a genius artist . . . A thought-provoking book whose characters will stay with you long after you've finished reading it."
  Historical Novel Society
• "Sensuous and brooding."
  Bookseller
• "A vivid and atmospheric literary novel, rich in observational detail, that explores and transcends the oppressive power dynamics of artistic creation."
  Sydney Morning Herald