Set across a Provencal summer in 1920, Lucy Steeds’ The Artist follows an enigmatic painter, his niece and a British journalist.
A romantic-mystery debut novel based in sun-soaked southern France has won the 2025 Waterstones Book of the Year.
Set across a Provencal summer in 1920, Lucy Steeds’ The Artist follows an enigmatic painter, his niece and a British journalist who is keen on writing a piece about him, before tensions begin to build between them all.
Steeds, from London, who also claimed the 2025 Waterstones’ Debut Fiction Prize, began writing the novel while living in France and beat shortlisted authors including Sir David Attenborough and Colin Butfield’s Ocean, and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games prequel, Sunrise On The Reaping.
Bea Carvalho, Waterstones’ head of books said: “The Artist is a gorgeously escapist novel which seamlessly transports the reader to the sticky heat of sun-soaked 1920s’ southern France, weaving mystery with romance while delving into the complex nature of artistry.
“Atmospheric, elegant and sensory, it is a novel to be fully swept away by.
“Lucy Steeds is a writer of staggering, rare talent and it has been a joy to see this bookseller favourite become a word-of-mouth sensation.”
Steeds joins the likes of Asako Yuzuki, who won the award in 2024 with Butter, and 2023 winner Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures.
The 2025 Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year was awarded to Bafta award-winning animation director Mikey Please, with his debut picture book The Cafe At The Edge Of The Woods.
Told in immersive rhymes, the playful story follows Rene and her waiter Glumfoot as their dreams of running their own cafe come true, until local mythical customers begin to order all sorts of disgusting meals.
Carvalho said: “The Cafe At The Edge Of The Woods bursts with charm and delight, juggling the delicious and the disgusting through addictive rhymes and exquisite illustration.
“Sweetly slapstick and quirkily surreal, it crams silliness and splendour into every tiniest detail.
“Rene and Glumfoot are an iconic new double act who children and adults alike will fall for, this is a true treat of a book which champions the sheer fun to be found in children’s storytelling.”
Chef Tim Siadatan, the co-owner of two London-based restaurants, Trullo and Padella, and one of the graduates from the first intake at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, took Waterstones Gift of the Year 2025 with his pasta book Padella.
Carvalho said: “Our Gift of the Year, Padella, will be a welcome addition to any kitchen bookshelf, inspiring yet accessible, destined to be thick with oil-splatter like all the most beloved cookbooks.
“Padella stands out as one of the most stunningly produced books of the year, setting the bar high for designers for the coming years.”
The Waterstones Book of the Year title is a coveted award, whose previous winners include Philip Pullman, Maggie O’Farrell, Charlie Mackesy and Sir Paul McCartney.
The winners will receive the full and committed backing of Waterstones’ shops and booksellers across the UK, and support online and through its loyalty card programme, Waterstones Plus, which reaches more than one million readers.
