The Hand That First Held Mine

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International bestseller and winner of the 2010 Costa Novel—a gorgeously written story of love and motherhood from the author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait.

When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realizes she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with her sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood that don’t tally with his parents’ version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.Winner of the 2010 Costa Book Award for Best Novel

“Ridiculously pleasurable to read. . . . Undeniably literary with a capital L.” —The Guardian

“Artful.” —Los Angeles Times

“Skilful, impassioned. . . . Engaging and fluent.” ―Sunday Telegraph

“O’Farrell creates a suspenseful atmosphere. . . . When she finally reveals the connections between the two generations and lifts the opaque curtain, we enter a scene of surprising grace and hopefulness.” —The Boston Globe

“From After You’d Gone to The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O’Farrell has written movingly about the female psyche and familial trauma. With The Hand That First Held Mine, she applies that skill to issues of early parenthood in a novel that plays to all her strengths.” —Financial Times

“A compelling novel of memory and motherhood. . . . O’Farrell possesses such a lyrical touch. . . . In The Hand That First Held Mine, she . . . demonstrates a masterful gift for storytelling.” —The Guardian

“Genuinely unputdownable. . . . [The Hand that First Held Mine is] evidence of [O’Farrell’s] place as one of Britain’s most engaging contemporary novelists.” ―Literary Review

“The Hand That First Held Mine is award-winning O’Farrell’s keenly anticipated follow-up to her richly imagined, deeply disturbing The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, which had reviewers reaching for superlatives and making glowing comparisons with Rebecca West, Daphne du Maurier and Katherine Mansfield. Her skilfully constructed new novel will surely test their vocabularies to the limit.” —The Herald

“The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell is one of those surprisingly riveting literary novels that will have you in tatters when you turn its final pages . . . O’Farrell can really write.” —Booklist
 
“[O’Farrell’s] sure hand for psychological suspense . . . continues to be most impressive.” —Library Journal

“An exquisitely sensual tale of love, motherhood, and other forms of madness. . . . [It] will unsettle, move, and haunt you.” —Emma Donoghue, author of RoomMAGGIE O’FARRELL was born in Northern Ireland in 1972. Her novels include Hamnet (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction), The Marriage Portrait, After You’d Gone, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The Hand That First Held Mine (winner of the Costa Novel Award), and Instructions for a Heatwave. She has also written a memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. She lives in Edinburgh.US

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