The Painter’s Daughters

DEBUT Howes’s impressive debut novel centers around rambunctious 18th-century sisters Peggy and Molly, whose unladylike behavior greatly vexes their mother. Their father, celebrated portrait artist Thomas Gainsborough, is an unreliable source of support for the girls, sometimes encouraging their high spirits, and other times shutting himself away in his studio so that he can ignore their pleas for attention. This emotional distance becomes especially unfortunate as Peggy notices Molly engaging in increasingly strange behavior, from sleepwalking to odd spells where she seems totally unaware of her surroundings. Worried about her sister, Peggy desperately tries to hide Molly’s condition, despite the costs to both girls. Peggy isn’t the only Gainsborough with secrets, however, and Howes slowly reveals a scandalous aspect of the family’s past that sheds new light on Molly’s plight. Peggy is a flawed but immensely sympathetic protagonist whose fierce love for her sister is easy to relate to, even when the choices she makes are ill-advised. Readers will want to know how it all turns out.