LoveReading Says
One of our Great Reads you may have missed in 2011.
February 2011 MEGA Book of the Month.
Winner of the Costa Novel Award 2010. Costa Book Awards 2010 Judges' comment: "A powerful story full of dynamic characters, crafted with panache and lyricism."
A gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de force from one of our best loved novelists.
May 2010 Good Housekeeping selection.
The fifth book from the award-winning author of After You’d Gone is another delight, weaving
together the stories of two women who have never met but whose destinies are linked by
secrets, deception and love. Maggie’s skill is to draw the reader into her characters’ lives, while
gradually revealing the relationship that binds them. A compelling portrait of motherhood.
July 2010 Guest Editor Louise Candlish on Maggie O'Farrell...
O’Farrell is an author I’ve come to quite late and have therefore read in the wrong order. This is her newest and most stylish; the writing is spun gold. I love the character of Lexie Sinclair: the way she approaches motherhood, the way she runs her career, the way she treats her men. It’s terribly sad, too, and made me cry.
Sarah Broadhurst
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The Hand That First Held Mine Synopsis
From the best-selling author of The Vanishing of Esme Lennox comes a spellbinding novel that shows there are no accidents, in life and in love.
Frustrated with her parents' genteel country life, Lexie Sinclair plans her escape to London. There, she takes up with Innes Kent, a magazine editor who introduces her to the thrilling, underground world of bohemian, postwar Soho. She learns to be a reporter, comes to know art and artists, and embraces her freedom fully. So when she finds herself pregnant, she doesn't hesitate to have the baby on her own. Later, in present-day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood and finds she can't remember giving birth, while her boyfriend Ted is flooded with memories and images he cannot place. As their stories unfold—moving in time and changing voice chapter by chapter—a connection between the three of them takes shape that drives the novel towards a tremendous revelation. Praised by The Washington Post as a “breathtaking, heart-breaking creation,” The Hand That First Held Mine is a gorgeous and tenderly wrought story about the ways in which love and beauty bind us together.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780547423180 |
| Publication date: |
26th January 2011 |
| Author: |
Maggie O'Farrell |
| Publisher: |
Mariner Books an imprint of HMH Books |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
341 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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About Maggie O'Farrell
Maggie O'Farrell is the author of seven novels, AFTER YOU'D GONE, MY LOVER'S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award, and THIS MUST BE THE PLACE. She lives in Edinburgh.
More About Maggie O'Farrell
