The Ghost of Lily Painter

A spellbinding novel which combines rich writing with a sinister period in London's history

I read it in two days flat and enjoyed it hugely - a wonderful combination of ghost story, detective story and social history.

Gaynor Arnold, author of 'Girl in a Blue Dress'

In this dark thriller, Caitlin Davies uses the haunted house as the frame for a disturbing story of cruelty in Victorian London

I enjoyed it so much - stories of "then" and "now", and beautifully balanced between the two

Judith Flanders, author of The Victorian House

[A] meticulously researched and moving new novel

The author's exhaustive research has the same ability as Sarah Waters to vividly bring to life a particular period in history.

She represents historical research as exciting, romantic and as offering personal catharsis.

Caitlin Davies is a journalist, teacher, non fiction writer and novelist. She lives in north London.

The first time Annie Sweet sees 43 Stanley Road, the house is so perfect she almost feels as though it has chosen her. But with her husband seeming more distant, and her daughter wrapped up in her friends and new school, Annie is increasingly left alone to mull over the past. 
 
She soon becomes consumed by the house and everyone who has lived there before her, especially a young music hall singer called Lily Painter, whose sparkling performances were the talk of London. As Annie delves further into the past she unravels the case of two notorious baby farmers, who cruelly preyed on vulnerable unmarried mothers. And until she solves the mystery at the heart of the scandal, the ghost of Lily Painter will never be able to rest. 
 
Basing her story on true events, Caitlin Davies skilfully blends fact and fiction to bring to life part of our sinister past. Spanning an entire century, from the journals of an Edwardian police inspector to a doomed wartime love affair, The Ghost of Lily Painter is a gripping and poignant novel.

Caitlin Davies

A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.

A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious

Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form

This moving tale of life-long searches and accountability will pull at the heart strings

An absorbing, beautifully-written and very topical novel … Part mystery-novel, part historical, it is both readable and entertaining.

Family Likeness is a story of prejudice, war, secrets and the search to belong, which follows parallel stories of a child growing up in 18th century Kenwood House, and another in a 1950s children’s home.

A thoughtful and involving look at the social consequences of race and illegitimacy and how one’s need for a place to belong never really goes away.

A suspenseful novel. Muriel’s story, infused with the sadness of growing up not knowing why her parents abandoned her, has a ripple effect throughout the lives of the other characters ... culminating is some remarkable and moving scenes.

Family Likeness is a fascinating story, and a moving exploration of issues of race, family and belonging.

A mix of compelling family story, exquisite historical detail and layers of mystery, this is a very satisfying novel indeed. One of this summer’s must reads!

Helen Hunt, Fiction is Stranger than Fact

In a small Kent town in the 1950s, a bewildered little girl is growing up. Ostracised because of her colour, she tries her best to fit in, but nobody wants anything to do with her. 
 
A nanny climbs the steps of a smart London address. She’s convinced that her connection to the family behind the door is more than professional. 
 
And on the walls of an English stately home, amongst the family portraits, hangs an eighteenth-century oil painting of a mysterious black woman in a silk gown. 
 
In ways both poignant and unexpected, the three lives are intertwined in a heartbreaking story of prejudice and motherless children, of chances missed, of war time secrets and the search for belonging...

Caitlin Davies

Praise for Family Likeness

A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.

A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious

Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form

A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.

A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious

Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form

A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.

A quickly engaging domestic mystery … gently ingenious

Davies is an unfussy and intelligent storyteller with a gift for translating the complexities of ordinary lives into novelistic form

Books by Caitlin Davies

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