We are delighted to welcome debut author Lucy Steeds to Waterstones Deansgate, celebrating the paperback release of her highly acclaimed first novel: The Artist.

Winner of the 2025 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and names as the Waterstones Book of the Year, Steeds’ stunning debut took the literary world by storm. Richly evocative of a Provençal summer, the masterly 1920s-set novel focuses on an enigmatic painter, the young journalist set on penning a piece on him and the artist’s niece who harbours an unexpected secret.

Lucy joins us to discuss this impressive novel and answer audience questions, followed by a signing.

About The Artist

Provence, 1920.

Ettie moves through the remote farmhouse, silently creating the conditions that make her uncle’s artistic genius possible. Joseph, an aspiring journalist, has been invited to the house. He believes he’ll make his name by interviewing the reclusive painter, the great Edouard Tartuffe.

But everyone has their secrets. And, under the cover of darkness, Ettie has spent years cultivating hers.

Over this sweltering summer, everyone’s true colours will be revealed. Because Ettie is ready to be seen. Even if it means setting her world on fire.

Blending mystery and slow-burning romance with lush, cinematic prose and exquisite characterisation, The Artist is an absorbing study in monstrous egos, self-discovery and the power of art, filled with dextrous detail for the senses.

About the Author

Lucy Steeds’ debut novel, The Artist, was a Sunday Times bestseller, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Award and the Waterstones Book of the Year Award. Lucy herself has synaesthesia and uses this to play with ways of translating images into words. She has a BA in English Literature, a Masters in World Literatures from the University of Oxford, and is a graduate of both the Faber Academy and the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. She currently splits her time between London and Amsterdam.