The Painter's Daughters

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free

Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.

Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.

Access exclusive sales and deals.

Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Painter's Daughters

By: Emily Howes

Narrated by: Gemma Lawrence, Louise Brealey

Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

No valid payment method on file.

Add payment method

Switch payment method

We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method

Switch payment method

Pay using card ending in

Switch payment method

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Cancel

About this listen

SELECTED FOR THE BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB | WINNER OF THE MSLEXIA NOVEL COMPETITION

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 confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out.

When the family move to Bath, Thomas Gainsborough finds fame as a portrait artist, while his daughters are thrown into the whirl of polite society. Here, 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, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off-course. The discovery of a betrayal forces her to question all she has done for Molly - and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another . . .

Inspired by true events and told with irresistible vibrancy and wit, Emily Howes' award-winning debut is a captivating and deeply moving novel about art, sisterhood and the price we pay for love.©2024 Emily Howes (P)2024 Orion Publishing Group Limited

Family Life

Fiction

Genre Fiction

Historical Fiction

Literary Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

Critic reviews

It's beautifully written and I raced through it. Research is filtered through contemporary consciousness and deployed with skill. It's a polished performance (Hilary Mantel, Booker Prize-winning author of WOLF HALL)

Beautifully written, moving and skilfully handled, The Painter's Daughters is as exquisitely and tenderly rendered as a Gainsborough painting (Tracy Chevalier, author of GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING)

A beautifully written, impressively researched novel about sisterly love, art and sacrifice, The Painter's Daughters is historical fiction at its finest. Both entertaining and enlightening, it swept me along in its galloping pace while teaching me about a world I never knew. Howes is a talent to be reckoned with. Wonderful (Emma Stonex, author of THE LAMPLIGHTERS)

A moving exploration of the familial ties that bind us and the grief of a life half-lived . . . a wonderful debut that lingered with me (Elizabeth Macneal, author of THE DOLL FACTORY)

A wonderfully powerful and haunting novel about sisterly love, art and betrayal, with a hugely gripping plot. I absolutely loved it (Deborah Moggach, author of TULIP FEVER)

A feast for the senses and the joy of a story well told - a beautiful debut (Jo Browning Wroe, author of A TERRIBLE KINDNESS)

I loved The Painter's Daughters - a vivid, sad, beautiful novel about sisters (Amy Key, author of ARRANGEMENTS IN BLUE)

A deeply touching tale of two sisters that probes the difference between love and self-sacrifice. Fascinating (Priscilla Morris, author of BLACK BUTTERFLIES)

A mesmerising and at times quietly devastating tale of two sisters, art, shared suffering and love. With The Painter's Daughters, Emily Howes has pulled off the finest of balancing acts, combining rich and evocative historical detail with a light and contemporary writerly touch (Chloë Ashby, author of WET PAINT)

Beautifully written, confidently told and vivid in every detail, The Painter's Daughters was both a pleasure to read and broke my heart (Russell Franklin, author of THE BROKEN PLACES)

A delicately painted story of the two Gainsborough sisters, their lives as intricately entwined as a silken spiderweb. I adored it (Polly Crosby, author of VITA AND THE BIRDS)

Most relevant

I am an artist and I have painted portraits, I feel I know so much more about Gainsborough now. It has brought his work alive for me. Particularly the portraits that relate to this story.
The book is heartbreaking but beautifully and sensitively written. I like the 2 story lines running beside each other, although a little confused at first.
Having listened to the epilogue several times, I think there is an insinuation that Mollys mental state was inherited from the same father whom gave birth to George III. Is this possible? Who's daughter was Megs really? I don't know how true this part of the story is!
I loved every moment of this book. Highly recommended.

An insight into a closed world