I’m sharing my review for The Portrait Artist by Dani Heywood-Lonsdale #histfic #mystery

Here’s the blurb

One morning in 1890, a painting wrapped in brown paper appears on the steps of the National Gallery and causes a sensation. It’s clearly by Timothy Ponden-Hall, an artist whose paintings were celebrated and debated not just for their beauty but for the rumours behind them: they were believed to immortalise the soul of their subjects. But the mysterious explorer and artist has been thought dead for the last 50 years – so what does this new portrait mean? The Gallery brings in renowned art historian Solomon Oak to investigate. But as he races against time with his daughter Alice sometimes helping, and sometimes hindering him, they find that exposing Ponden-Hall’s legacy will prove more controversial than they could have imagined for Victorian society.

Set between London and Oxford, The Portrait Artist is a beautiful historical mystery exploring race, fame and long-kept secrets.

• Amazon

My Review

What a beautiful story. I was absolutely hooked from the second page and devoured this tale in a few sittings.
It has everything we might expect from a Victorian-era set tale, with their slightly strange obsession with phrenology, celebrity, mutton-chops, and bizarre leaps of faith about life, death and the afterlife.
Our main characters are Oaks, a professor in hiding following his oldest daughter’s tragic death, his surviving daughter, Alice, and also Grace, a portrait sitter at the National Gallery. Oaks is somewhat pompous to begin with, very Victorian in his attitude, whereas Alice and Grace are certainly not. They’re a slightly unconventional trio, and this is as much a story of their development as individuals as it is about uncovering Ponden-Hall’s identity. And what a tangled web this proves to be. It is beautifully evocative and the ending, I feel, really does stand up to the rest of the tale.
I just really loved it, and I had to stop myself from turning to the back pages to discover the resolution from about 50% through the book. I’m glad I didn’t give in and allowed the story to unfold as it was intended.
I don’t read a huge number of more ‘literary fiction’ historical stories (I love a Golden Age cosy crime), but it had a similar ‘feel’ to Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver. Enjoy.