Hearts of Glass

In this heart-wrenching and utterly spellbinding story of love and artistic ambition, a young woman fights to be true to herself in a world where duty, money and class jeopardise her dreams.

England, 1908: Alice Dalton never intended to rebel against her aristocratic parents. But after her father’s failed attempt to arrange a marriage for her with Edmund Cutler, son of a wealthy stockbroker, she flees the family home humiliated – and determined to make a life for herself as an independent woman, however hard that might be.

When a chance opportunity leads to her taking a position as a stained-glass artist’s apprentice, Alice is stunned when she meets the man she’ll be working for: the hateful Edmund Cutler. It seems he too has turned his back on his family and has followed his passion for art, and at terrible cost.

But as they work together, mixing paints and composing their stained-glass window commissions side by side, she finds herself softening towards him, and can’t ignore the sparks that fly between them. With family conflict brewing and war on the horizon, soon Alice finds that loving Edmund proves the hardest fight, and greatest adventure, of her life.

A gripping historical novel for fans of Fiona Valpy, Rhys Bowen and Lucinda Riley.

The Artist’s Apprentice was previously published as The Colour of Glass.