The Original : 'Marvellously inventive and perfectly forged' Eleanor Catton

'A sinuous, thrilling meditation on fakes and forgers, with echoes of Daphne du Maurier and Sarah Waters' OLIVIA LAING'So witty and propulsive you will forget how brilliantly constructed it is' JESSIE BURTON'Deliciously engaging and wildly intelligent' AYSEGÜL SAVAS'A delightful, playful puzzle of a novel' CLAIRE FULLER‘There was a painting my family set on fire.It burned to ashes, and then it came back.’ Oxfordshire, 1899.Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home.She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls. Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena.After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home.When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own