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."

Shortlisted for the Galaxy UK Author of the Year 2010.

Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 20 May 2010.

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.

Synopsis

A gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de force from one of our most acclaimed and best loved novelists. When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises 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 for herself, with Innes at her side. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina, a painter, struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood, memories that don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, so an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

Reviews

About the Author

Maggie O'Farrell is the author of five 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 and The Hand That First Held Mine which won the Costa Novel Award 2010. Born in Northern Ireland, Maggie grew up in Wales and Scotland. She lives in London with her husband and two children. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation