Margot Livesey

"One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy's life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. Matthew, the oldest, becomes obsessed with tracking down the assailant, secretly searching the local town with the victim's brother. Zoe wanders the streets of Oxford, looking at men, and one of them, a visiting American graduate student, returns her gaze. Duncan, the youngest, who has seldom thought about being adopted, suddenly decides he wants to find his birth mother. Overshadowing all three is the awareness that something is amiss in their parents' marriage. Over the course of the autumn, as each of the siblings confronts the complications and contradictions of their approaching adulthood, they find themselves at once drawn together and driven apart"--

A Novel

The Boy in the Field

The resonant story of a young woman’s struggle to take charge of her own future, The Flight of Gemma Hardy is a modern take on a classic story—Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—that will fascinate readers of the Gothic original and fans of modern literary fiction alike, with its lyrical prose, robust characters, and abundant compassion. Set in early 1960s Scotland, this breakout novel from award-winning author Margot Livesey is a tale of determination and spirit that, like The Three Weissmanns of Westport and A Thousand Acres, spins an unforgettable new story from threads of our shared, still-living literary past. “Gemma is real—it’s as simple as that. And through her eyes we see step by step what it means . . . to take possession of one’s own life.” —David Wroblewski, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

The Flight of Gemma Hardy

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a novel about a young woman whose gift of second sight complicates her coming of age in late 19th century Scotland Growing up in the care of her grandparents on Belhaven Farm, Lizzie Craig discovers as a small child that she can see into the future. But her gift is selective—she doesn’t, for instance, see that she has an older sister who will come to join the family. As her “pictures” foretell various incidents and accidents, she begins to realize a painful truth: she may glimpse the future, but she can seldom change it. Nor can Lizzie change the feelings that come when a young man named Louis, visiting Belhaven for the harvest, begins to court her. Why have the adults around her not revealed that the touch of a hand can change everything? After following Louis to Glasgow, though, she learns the limits of his devotion. Faced with a seemingly impossible choice, she makes a terrible mistake. But her second sight may allow her a second chance. Luminous and transporting, The Road from Belhaven once again displays “the marvelous control of a writer who conjures equally well the tangible, sensory world . . . and the mysteries, stranger and wilder, that flicker at the border of that world.” (The Boston Globe)

A novel

The Road from Belhaven

Raised by her aunt and her grieving father, motherless Eva McEwen grows up accompanied by two otherworldly companions--a woman and a girl--whom only she can see and finds herself torn between real life, including her career as a nurse and her love for a young plastic surgeon, and the meddling of her enigmatic companions. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.

Eva Moves the Furniture

Reveals how luck-- good and bad-- plays a vital role in our lives, and how the search for truth can prove a dangerous undertaking.

The House on Fortune Street

Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optometrist in suburban Boston, he is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young thoroughbred with a murky past—arrives at Windy Hill and everything changes. Mercury’s owner, Hilary, is a newcomer to town who has enrolled her daughter in riding lessons. When she brings Mercury to board at Windy Hill, everyone is struck by his beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv begins to dream of competing again, embracing the ambitions that she had harbored, and relinquished, as a young woman. Her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred escalates to obsession. Donald may have 20/20 vision but he is slow to notice how profoundly Viv has changed and how these changes threaten their quiet, secure world. By the time he does, it is too late to stop the catastrophic collision of Viv’s ambitions and his own myopia. At once a tense psychological drama and a taut emotional thriller exploring love, obsession, and the deceits that pull a family apart, Mercury is a riveting tour de force that showcases this “searingly intelligent writer at the height of her powers” (Jennifer Egan).

Mercury

A masterclass for those who love reading literature and for those who aspire to write it.

Essays on Writing

The Hidden Machinery

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year | An O Magazine Best Book of the Year The New York Times bestselling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy delivers another "luminous, unforgettable, and perfectly rendered" (Dennis Lehane) novel--a poignant and probing psychological drama that follows the lives of three siblings in the wake of a violent crime. One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy's life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. Matthew, the oldest, becomes obsessed with tracking down the assailant, secretly searching the local town with the victim's brother. Zoe wanders the streets of Oxford, looking at men, and one of them, a visiting American graduate student, looks back. Duncan, the youngest, who has seldom thought about being adopted, suddenly decides he wants to find his birth mother. Overshadowing all three is the awareness that something is amiss in their parents' marriage. Over the course of the autumn, as each of the siblings confronts the complications and contradictions of their approaching adulthood, they find themselves at once drawn together and driven apart. Written with the deceptive simplicity and power of a fable, The Boy in the Field showcases Margot Livesey's unmatched ability to "tell her tale masterfully, with intelligence, tenderness, and a shrewd understanding of all our mercurial human impulses" (Lily King, author of Euphoria).

Troubled by his betrayal of the woman he professes to love, Jonathan takes advantage of an unexpected opportunity to rewrite his relationship with Hazel, a woman robbed by an accident of her memories of the last three years, while two other misfits, also tormented by troubling memories, are drawn into his orbit. Reprint.

The Missing World

The discovery of a baby girl abandoned in a bus-station restroom becomes the catalyst for linking five distinct lives in a web of responsibility, affection, and filial, maternal, and romantic love. By the author of Homework. 50,000 first printing. Lit Guild Alt. Tour.

Criminals

Following the acclaimed Criminals comes a spellbinding new novel that confirms Margot Livesey's place "right up there," as Liz Smith wrote in the "Philadelphia Inquirer, "in the realm of P. D. James and the esteemed Patricia Highsmith." What if -- by stroke of fortune -- you could start afresh, could wipe away that catastrophic blunder in your past? And to what lengths would you go to establish that in fact you'd done nothing wrong at all? After an accident robs Hazel of three years' worth of memory, just such an opportunity is granted to Jonathan, undone by his betrayal of this woman, whom he professes to love above all. While he begins to rewrite their history, two other misfits -- an American sojourner and a luckless English actress -- knock about London, each of them haunted by indelible memories they would much rather forget. Eventually their hopes of redemption draw them toward Jonathan's house, where Hazel has become a virtual prisoner . . . Replete with compelling characters and extravagantly plotted, The Missing World weaves together these separate quests for love and truth in a manner both thrilling and, ultimately, revealing about our imperfect lives.

When her widower father drowns at sea, ten-year-old Gemma Hardy, an only child, is taken from her native Iceland to Scotland, to live with her uncle’s family. But the death of her doting guardian soon after leaves Gemma under the resentful eye of her aunt. When she receives a scholarship to a private school, Gemma believes she’s found the perfect solution, and she eagerly sets out again to a new home. But at Claypoole, she finds herself treated as an unpaid servant. To Gemma’s delight, the school finally goes bankrupt in 1959 and she takes a job as an au pair on the Orkney Islands. Remote Blackbird Hall belongs to Mr. Sinclair, a rich, single London businessman; his eight-year-old niece is Gemma’s charge. An unlikely pair, Gemma and Sinclair are nonetheless drawn to each another, but their courtship is cut short by Gemma’s discovery of a secret that has shadowed her employer’s life. Set in Iceland and Scotland in the 1950s and ’60s, The Flight of Gemma Hardy is a captivating homage to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre—a sweeping saga that resurrects the timeless themes of the original but is destined to become a classic all its own.

Flight Of Gemma Hardy

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year | An O Magazine Best Book of the Year The New York Times bestselling author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy delivers another “luminous, unforgettable, and perfectly rendered” (Dennis Lehane) novel—a poignant and probing psychological drama that follows the lives of three siblings in the wake of a violent crime. One September afternoon in 1999, teenagers Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang are walking home from school when they discover a boy lying in a field, bloody and unconscious. Thanks to their intervention, the boy’s life is saved. In the aftermath, all three siblings are irrevocably changed. Matthew, the oldest, becomes obsessed with tracking down the assailant, secretly searching the local town with the victim’s brother. Zoe wanders the streets of Oxford, looking at men, and one of them, a visiting American graduate student, looks back. Duncan, the youngest, who has seldom thought about being adopted, suddenly decides he wants to find his birth mother. Overshadowing all three is the awareness that something is amiss in their parents’ marriage. Over the course of the autumn, as each of the siblings confronts the complications and contradictions of their approaching adulthood, they find themselves at once drawn together and driven apart. Written with the deceptive simplicity and power of a fable, The Boy in the Field showcases Margot Livesey’s unmatched ability to “tell her tale masterfully, with intelligence, tenderness, and a shrewd understanding of all our mercurial human impulses” (Lily King, author of Euphoria).

Raised by her aunt and her grieving father, motherless Eva McEwen grows up accompanied by two otherworldly companions--a woman and a girl--whom only she can see and finds herself torn between real life, including her career as a nurse and her love for a young plastic surgeon, and the meddling of her enigmatic companions. 40,000 first printing.

Eva McEwen wächst sehr einsam in dem schottischen Städtchen Troon auf, ihre Mutter starb bei ihrer Geburt. Ihre Einsamkeit wird durch 2 Besucherinnen aus einer anderen Welt gemildert, die nur für Eva sichtbar sind.

Roman

Der Ruf der Elstern

A masterclass for those who love reading literature and for those who aspire to write it. “Read everything that is good for the good of your soul. Then learn to read as a writer, to search out that hidden machinery, which it is the business of art to conceal and the business of the apprentice to comprehend.” In The Hidden Machinery, critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Margot Livesey offers a masterclass for those who love reading literature and for those who aspire to write it. Through close readings, arguments about craft, and personal essay, Livesey delves into the inner workings of fiction and considers how our stories and novels benefit from paying close attention to both great works of literature and to our own individual experiences. Her essays range in subject matter from navigating the shoals of research to creating characters that walk off the page, from how Flaubert came to write his first novel to how Jane Austen subverted romance in her last one. As much at home on your nightstand as it is in the classroom, The Hidden Machinery will become a book readers and writers return to over and over again.

The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing

Follows the brief love affair of unworldly London carpenter Zeke and pregnant radio show host Verona, whose relationship is cut short in the face of Zeke's father's failing health, his mother's infidelity, and Verona's brother's shady financial dealings. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.

Margot Livesey

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