‘The Hand That First Held Mine’ (2010) is Maggie O’Farrell’s poetic, extremely moving and very human story of memory, motherhood and emotions. O’Farrell tells us the stories of two couples – Lexie and Innes, in the 1950s and Ted and Elina in the present day – both with a London setting and both stories linked. ‘First Held Mine’ is a novel which is very up close and personal and unflinchingly so. It’s a story ostensibly about relationships; family and memory (distorted or otherwise) providing a h...

Edited to make correction. Originally read Aug, 25, 2014. I loved this novel mostly because of the writing. Yes, I loved the story and the characters too, but from the exquisite opening paragraph it was all about the writing.“Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.”Something amazing doe...

4.7, rounded up because I just had toThis writer, this Maggie O’Farrell, just wow. I’ve never read five books by any writer before (and I did this all within a year--what??). That should give you a hint of how ga-ga I am over Maggie dearest. Can I call her Maggie, please, as if we’re all chummy chummy, since I want to be?What did I like about this book? Well, just about everything. It is 100 percent absorbing. It has the required good characters, plot, and pacing. The characters have depth and t...

This book left me breathless, gulping, and sobbing. Maggie O’Farrell is a master—of story, structure, and my god, transitions! But that is stuff writers swoon over. For readers there is a great story of family connections that transcend known facts. It’s about the truths we intuit and how they can nag, direct, and torture us until we bring them into consciousness and the now. A wonderful book!By the way, the Kindle edition also has a wonderful short story called “The House I Live In”—an appropri...

This book is so hard to quantify with stars, because although I hated it for the majority, I have to admit that there were definite moments of genius. I can recognize what she was attempting here – there’s a slow, poetic, visual quality to the writing that sometimes succeeds. I can appreciate this type of novel (huge Michael Cunningham fan here) when it’s done with substantial emotion and poignancy and when the words are stunning enough in themselves to negate the absolute need for a concrete pl...

Having recently read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and loved it, I was eager to read another book by Maggie O'Farrell and the blurb of The hand that first held mine had me intrigued.Fresh out of university and in disgrace, Lexie Sinclair is waiting for life to begin when the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep in rural Devon. In the present Ted and Elina no longer recognise their lives after the arrival of their first child. Elina an artist wonders if she will ever paint again w...

Any fiction novel which follows the five or six literary fiction novels I have just finished may well have big shoes to fill but The Hand That First Held Mine held it's own. I do so love it when an author combines combines real people into their story. After reading this novel, I half expect if I pore over the photographs by John Deakin I shall find images of Lexie and Innes. And likewise, if I go to Soho, I shall find on Bayton Street the faded chalk writing of the word elsewhere in front of th...

5 🎨 🎨 🎨 🎨 🎨I am, I am, I am in love with Maggie O’Farrell’s writing. She captivates then mesmerizes me completely. Currently I am basking in the afterglow of this tale of two extraordinary women living years apart, their lives eventually connecting, though they will never meet. My hand was resting over my heart when I finished and I was a bit emotional, yes I was, and now I can’t wait to read everything she’s written.I made use of both the eBook and audio from Overdrive and discovered just how m...

Oh no, another favourite author releasing a new title – cue the sickening feelings of anxiety when I settle into the story , wondering if it will meet my expectations but any fears are quickly assuaged as I become immersed in this, Maggie O’ Farrell’s fifth novel. I devoured it in a few sittings – one of those books you are eager to embrace but loath to leave.Like it’s predecessor, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, there is a cleverly woven dual narrative, one set in the 1950s/1960s in Bohemian

Although choosing a favourite author is tough, when forced to do so I would more often than not, answer with Maggie O'Farrell as mine. I find her style of writing beautiful, almost melodic and so incredibley descriptive and evocative of the senses that you really feel like you step into the world of the characters whilst reading.However, this was based on her first three books, and I have to say that despite being SO excited for the release of 'The Vanishing Act of Esme May' (only book I've ever...

The Hand That First Held Mine, my first book by Irish author Maggie O’Farrell, held me enthralled from the beginning to the end. The evocative opening lines are set in Devon, southwestern England, in the late summer of the mid 1950s. In a house perched on a wind-swept cliff where trees are tossing their heads impatiently, a 21-year-old woman is similarly impatient. She is waiting for her life to begin.Alexandra (a.k.a Lexie) Sinclair, an attractive and spunky university dropout, finds escape fro...

"She doesn't know that he is coming, getting even closer with every passing second, walking in his hand-made shoes along the roads that separate them, the distance between them shrinking with every well-shod step. Life as she will know it is about to begin but she is absorbed, finally, in her reading, in a long-dead man's struggle with mortality."Maggie O'Farrell seems to nudge us into remembering.....remembering that one individual that pivoted our life into a completely different direction. An...

And just like that, Sarah Jessica Par… Ahem… sorry… I meant Grey’s Anatom… Bloody hell… What’s wrong with Mr. Big? What about George Clooney, is he married? And do you think Julia Roberts had some work done, I mean, plastic surgery, or is she just naturally gorgeous even in her mid fifties? Did you like her more in Pretty Woman or in Sleeping With the Enemy? I really think she was great in Erin Brockovich. To be fair, she’s always great and looks great and life’s great and some people like to re...

I was unsure as I began this Maggie O’Farrell novel if it was going to impress me as her other works have. It seemed to be two stories, being told in short installments, disconnected from one another; and the transitions were sometimes jarring. I would have just developed a real interest in one narrative and, boom, we were off to the other one. I should have had more faith. Maggie O’Farrell is an author who knows exactly what she is doing.In a way, this is a story about motherhood, about the tra...

Maggie O’Farrell is so good! Her characters are so well written and i was immediately drawn into their lives. This book has two timelines. The first starts in the 1950’s, a young woman moves to London and we follow her life and loves. The second is modern day, a couple with a newborn return home after a traumatic birth. It’s not clear initially how the stories will interconnect, and wanting to know made it hard to put this book down. She writes about motherhood and parenting beautifully, especia...

I love that Maggie O’Farrell began this story by appealing to my aural sense. This is her opening paragraph: “Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.” “Listen,” O’Farrell says. The trees are listening. The trees don’t listen to just any little ole thing. Something is going to happen. So...

5 Earth Shattering Stars!!A brilliant portrayal of motherhood and a mother’s love that is transcendent. Maggie O’Farrell captures so much more- the exhaustion, the anxieties, the joys, the overall magnitude of what a mother is.“ It’s a special thing you have with him. It’s like he has this internal timer that measures how long he hasn’t seen you and without warning it can just go off and nothing else will mollify him.”This book tugged at my heart and left me aching for more. Maggie O’Farrell is

”Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.” ”A graveled path curves towards the front door of the house. On the washing-line, petticoats and vests, socks and stays, nappies and handkerchiefs snap and writhe in the breeze. A radio can be heard from somewhere, one of the neighbouring

Maggie O'Farrel is one of those authors I really want to read, but everytime I grab one of her books, I'm easily sidetracked. Not that I don't want to read her, I just feel you need to concentrate and immerse yourself in the story. Hectic lives...sometimes those types of reads get pushed aside. So I was very happy that when looking for a Buddy read with Dana, she was up for this one as we both wanted to read it. The Hand That First Held Mine is a story that is told in interweaving, alternating t...

O’Farrell’s novel could easily have turned out as a mawkish romance, but is exquisite instead. This is ‘serious literary fiction,’ and won a Costa Best Novel award to prove it. The descriptive language is elegant and precise, with just the right number of words and images to create a mental picture of a lawn in Devon with laundry flapping on a line, or the cracked tiles of the entryway of a London row house. Most of the book is in the present tense, which lends it immediacy and reality. Moreover...