Hand That First Held Mine, The

Description: Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE is a gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, a tour de force from one of our best loved novelists When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up 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. In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child. Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood that don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

Review: 'O'Farrell has a remarkable ability to convey the texture of human emotion with precision' Observer 'Like Daphne du Maurier...O'Farrell writes books designed to...bring our most primal fears to the surface' Daily Mail 'O'Farrell is a skilful, impassioned writer...engaging and fluent' Sunday Telegraph 'Genuinely unputdownable...evidence of her place as one of Britain's most engaging contemporary novelists' Literary Review

Prizes: Winner of Costa Novel Award 2010. Shortlisted for Galaxy National Book Awards: Waterstone's UK Author of the Year 2010.

Author Biography: 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 2010 Costa Novel Award. She lives in Edinburgh.

An unforgettable novel of love and motherhood from bestselling author Maggie O'Farrell