Nuanced choices and working at cross-purposes.  The redemption of being loved - this is when a person is at his or her best.  The particular melancholy of reaching the end of a story . . . in life, with death, even with the closing of the cover of a book.  I wasn't ready to let these characters go.  Brava!

I absolutely loved this book, which is kind of funny because when I first started reading it I wasn't sure if I would even like it. Oh, the writing was brilliant right from the start, but anyone reading my reviews knows how frustrating I find jumping timelines. This book does it alot, the past, the present, the future, sometimes skipping several years and introducing new characters. At the heart this is the story of Claudette and Daniel, fell in love with Daniel in all his maddening humanness, b...

This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell is a type of book I always enjoy i.e. a saga that spans different time periods and geographical locations. A novel that touches on contemporary themes but is, at its heart, an intelligent examination of human relationships. A novel that is also frequently funny.This book is not without faults but touched most bases for me. The story contains a large cast of carefully drawn characters. Within this diverse group is an extended family and at the centre of

I am on a Maggie O’Farrell binge and loving it. I am captivated by her writing style, the way she can weave scattered threads into a tapestry, seem to lose the pattern and then bring it back into clear focus again. She bewitches me, and while I am reading her I want to do nothing else but follow the threads and decipher the design. I have not felt this entranced with a writer since I stumbled upon Anita Shreve in the early 90’s and waited impatiently between books for her next volume to be relea...

This Must Be The Place is my third book by Maggie O’Farrell and the first that I found somewhat wearisome.It is a rather long story, albeit compelling, that is not told chronologically and spans a time period from 1944 to 2016. The chapters are written from the perspective of a large cast of characters at various time points in the past or present. The story also takes place in different places: Donegal (Ireland), Belfast, London, Sussex, Cumbria, Suffolk, Scotland, Brooklyn, St. Francisco, Cali...

An odd sort of book. It’s more like a collection of stories than your typical novel. Each chapter is told by a different character and from a different time period. The stories all tend to revolve around Daniel Sullivan, a linguistics professor living in Ireland with his second wife, an ex-actress in hiding. The stories coalesce to fill in Daniel’s story. The chapter titles keep you on track as to time and place, so you aren't confused. Daniel is not a sympathetic character. He’s a womanizer, al...

This story starts off with a BANG....literally a ‘bang’! It was such a strong beginning— twice my cell phone went off - personal calls coming in - I seriously debated about answering. One of those calls - I didn’t pick up.But then something happened to MY ENJOYMENT- I didn’t understand what was happening. The story changed on me so quickly - new characters were introduced and I found myself resisting reading about them. I was still back with the first story.So....I did something that worked beau...

This is above all a love story. Very heartwarming, and suspenseful and a story of family, secrets, and forgiveness... I just loved Daniel Sullivan even with all of his flaws, he still had a huge heart and sense of humor.

This is one of the most thoughtful, literate books I've read in a long time. The story of a man, Daniel Sullivan, reveals both the good and the bad sides of him, the joys and sorrows and what motivates him. The story is divided into chapters narrated by many different people who have impacted his life in so many ways. The book also skips throughout time from 1944 to 2016 but is quite easy to follow. What emerges is a well developed story of a man. When Daniel meets Claudette he has one major fai...

Maggie O’Farrell is seriously talented. I recently read I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, and now I’ve just finished This Must Be the Place. Her two other books got 5 stars from me, and this one gets a high 4 stars.The novel focuses on Daniel and Claudette, who are married and have two children together and each have children from prior relationships. Claudette is a former film star escaping her previous life and Daniel is troubled by a few ghos...

Daniel and Claudette's love story is not an easy journey. He is charming, articulate, joyful and mercurial; she is enchanting, disarming, strong and steadfast, but one thing she is not is disloyal and she will not put up with a man who is. I found their story lovely and sad and heartbreaking. Powerful emphasis on children and how their lives are effected by loving parents or their opposite is a major part of the author's theme as well. This is not just one love story, it is many, the love of a f...

I wish I could adequately describe how brilliantly Maggie O'Farrell portrays relationships - these love stories. I was first introduced to Maggie O'Farrell's writing in The Hand That First Held Mine and I was taken at first page and then all over again when I read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. There is something about how this woman open her novels , something about the writing that draws me in and then her characters and their stories take over my life for a few days. What was different wit...

She's got me in the palm of her hand....Even though I didn’t grab my pogo stick this time, it was close. This Maggie O’Farrell, oh she’s got me in the palm of her hand. This is the third book of hers that I’ve read in the last couple of months, and it won’t be my last. I was all happy squirmy as I got tangled up in this love story of a linguistics professor, Daniel, and his wife Claudette, a reclusive ex-movie star. As seems to be O’Farrell’s signature, this story jumps back and forth in time, s...

5★★★★★I'm in my favorite reading place with a Maggie O'Farrell. It's hard to move on to another book after I finish.I need some recovery time.I need to choose another very good read to follow it or I'm going to be very stingy with my stars.

”To all appearances, I am a husband, a father, a teacher, a citizen, but when tilted toward the light I become a deserter, a sham, a killer, a thief. On the surface I am one thing, but underneath I am riddled with holes and caverns, like a limestone landscape.” Told through multiple intertwined chains of stories that weave through the years 1944 to 2016, this takes you on a virtual tour of various locales on the planet. From Goa, India to Brooklyn, to a remote locale in Donegal, Ireland – whi

This was a wonderful book about life and the struggles we all have to face. What I particularly liked about it is that it jumps in perspective, time and place. At one point, we're at a crossroads in rural Ireland, at another point, we find ourselves in America 20 years ago. "This Must Be the Place" makes for a puzzling, however very much intriguing tale about a movie star who once disappeared, about marriage, and about identity, guilt, and doubt. I loved it a lot and I'm thrilled I decided to gi...

A Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club February 2018 selectionThis is one of my lifetime favorites. Family stories are commonplace in fiction, but I love this one for its intricate plotting, nuanced characters, true-to-life feel, and ultimate hopefulness. It's the story of an unlikely but successful marriage between a floundering American professor and a British film star who hated the limelight so much she faked her own death and disappeared ... until an unexpected bit of news, twenty years old but newly...

I love Maggie O’Farrell. What is so unique about her is that with each new book, she reinvents herself. They are all so different in tone and subject matter. What remains the same is her mastery of language and her exquisite writing. I absolutely loved this book! When I first began reading it, I wasn’t totally sure how to react to the changing viewpoints and the changing time frames. Then it all came together for me and I realized how brilliantly she was creating this couple, Daniel and Claudett...

Maggie O’Farrell’s globe-trotting seventh novel opens in 2010 with Daniel Sullivan, an American linguistics professor in Donegal. Spreading outward from Ireland and reaching into every character’s past and future, this has all O’Farrell’s trademark insight into family and romantic relationships, as well as her gorgeous prose and precise imagery. The disparate locations and the title suggest our nomadic modern condition. It’s the widest scope she has attempted yet; that’s both a good and a bad th...

I am a fan of Maggie O' Farrell's novels but this book was all over the place for me and I just didn't come to grips with any of the characters or the constant shifts in time and place. I find O' Farrells writing normally quirky and engaging but this book left me feeling frustrated the further along I read. I found the story so disjointed that picking up the book felt like a chore and the only reason I did finish the book was because of the prose. I didn't engage with the plot or the characters