In a small Kent town in the 1950s, a bewildered little girl is growing up. Ostracised because of her colour, she tries her best to fit in, but nobody wants anything to do with her. A nanny climbs the steps of a smart London address. She's convinced that her connection to the family behind the door is more than professional. And on the walls of an English stately home, amongst the family portraits, hangs an eighteenth-century oil painting of a mysterious black woman in a silk gown. In ways both poignant and unexpected, the three lives are intertwined in a heartbreaking story of prejudice and motherless children, of chances missed, of war time secrets and the search for belonging...
A beautiful story of family and loss. Haunting and compelling.-- Lisa Jewell
Family Likeness is a story of prejudice, war, secrets and the search to belong, which follows parallel stories of a child growing up in 18th century Kenwood House, and another in a 1950s children's home. -- Ham & High
Author
About Caitlin Davies
Caitlin Davies lives in London with her daughter Ruby. She is a freelance journalist regularly writing education features for the Independent. She is the author of a novel, Jamestown Blues, and a non-fiction book, The Return of El Negro.
