‘There was a painting my family set on fire. It burned to ashes, and then it came back.’

Grace grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle Inderwick’s Oxfordshire home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces often elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls.

Quietly, Grace waits for something to change. Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena, causing a sensation. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those in the family who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must finally decide who and what to believe in.

Deftly-plotted and shimmering with intelligence, style and wit, The Original is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original.