The Original: A Novel
About this audiobook
In a grand English country house in 1899, an aspiring art forger must unravel whether the man claiming to be her long-lost cousin is an impostor.
Brought to her uncle’s decaying Oxfordshire estate when she was a child, Grace has grown up on the periphery of a once-great household, an outsider in her own home. Now a self-possessed and secretive young woman, she has developed unusual predilections: for painting, particularly forgery; for deception; for other girls.
As Grace cultivates her talent as a copyist, she realizes that her uncanny ability to recreate paintings might offer her a means of escape. Secretly, she puts this skill to use as an art forger, creating fake masterpieces in candlelit corners of the estate. Saving the money she makes from her sales, she plans a new life far from the family that has never seemed to want her.
Then, a letter arrives from the South Atlantic. The writer claims to be her cousin Charles, long presumed dead at sea, who wishes to reconnect with his family. When Charles returns, Grace’s aunt welcomes him with open arms; yet fractures appear in the household. Some believe he is who he says he is. Others are convinced he’s an impostor. As a court date looms to determine his legitimacy―and his claim to the family fortune―Grace must decide what she believes, and what she’s willing to risk.
Is Charles really her cousin? An interloper? A mirror of her own ambitions? And in a house built on illusions, what does authenticity truly mean―in art, in love, and in family?
Deftly plotted and shimmering with Nell Stevens’s distinctive intelligence, style, and wit, The Original takes listeners on an unforgettable adventure through a world of forgeries, family ties, and the fluctuations in fortune that can change our fate.
Discover more
About the author
Nell Stevens writes memoir and fiction. Her debut novel, Briefly, a Delicious Life was longlisted for the 2023 Dylan Thomas Award. She is also the author of Mrs. Gaskell & Me, which won the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2018. Her writing is published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Vogue, the Paris Review, New York Review of Books, the London Guardian, Granta, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Warwick.
Kristin Atherton is a voice talent and audiobook narrator. She is a talented actress who has performed at National Theatre Live and for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has been cast in the role of Jamie Fraser’s sister Jenny Murray in the second half of Outlander Season 7 on STARZ. She was born in 1986 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England.
Matthew Spencer was a newspaper journalist at The Australian for twenty years. He lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. Black River is his first novel. For more information, visit www.matthewspencer.com.au or follow him on Instagram (@matthewspencerauthor).
