Emma recommends... The Artist - Lucy Steeds

Emma recommends... Fabulous depiction of the tyranny of an artist patriarch, repressed but steely female talent and ambition, and the traumatic legacies of the First World War - the writing is deft, dextrous, and (often in what it is describing) delicious. The atmosphere of Provence in the summer is heady, the love story tender and moving, and the whole thing suffused with a kind of yearning desire that is irresistible.

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The year is 1920. The place is a remote farmhouse in Provence, home to the reclusive painter Edouard Tartuffe and his niece, Ettie. Into this strange, silent house walks Joseph: a young journalist hoping to write an article about Tartuffe. But the more he entangles himself in the peculiar household, the more Joseph's curiosity grows...
 
Ettie cooks and cleans for her uncle. She prepares his studio, scrubs his paintbrushes, and creates the perfect environment for him to work. She has never gone further than the local village. She is sharp-eyed and watchful. But beneath her cool exterior, Joseph senses something simmering. Ettie, Joseph and Tartuffe circle each other throughout the hot, crackling summer, until finally they collide.

The Artist is about two people grabbing the other by the hand and pulling each other into life.