Maggie O'Farrell

A spell-binding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood.

The Hand that First Held Mine

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.

Elena Garcia Navarro

Slightly disappointed with this one. The previous two novels I read by O'Farrell were both 5 stars but this one was lacking something and I kept waiting for it to grab my attention which never happened. I kind of had to force myself to keep picking it up and finish it.

There were some aspects that I enjoyed such as the two strong female leads (even though I quite enjoyed one of stories quite a lot more than the other), the emphasis and importance of art throughout the book and the beautiful writing style. However, I went into this novel with the wrong expectations since I thought both characters would eventually meet and influence each other which was not how the story played out. Also, the ending felt deeply unsatisfactory, really abrupt and the characters and the reader got no closure from what we just learn at the end of the novel. 

I will 100% continue reading books by this author but this just wasn´t my cup of tea.

The Hand that First Held Mine

Reviews