Sleeping Embers Of An Ordinary Mind by Anne Charnock is a beautifully written and quietly ambitious novel that blends history, contemporary life, and speculative futures into a single tapestry about art, identity, and the traces people leave behind.
Rather than following a single narrative thread, the book weaves together three parallel stories set centuries apart, each centered around a woman whose life is shaped by memory, loss, and creativity.
In fifteenth-century Italy, young Antonia Uccello - the daughter of renowned painter Paolo Uccello - discovers her own artistic talent and navigates the constraints of her time, where women’s ambitions are often suppressed or redirected.
In the present day, a contemporary artist and her teenage daughter carry their own emotional burdens as they travel through China on a commission to copy historic works, seeking meaning beyond family tragedy.
Farther into the future, an art historian in the twenty-second century becomes consumed with uncovering a mysterious painting rumored to be the work of Antonia - a discovery that reignites discussion about forgotten artists and the history that erases them.