The Hand That First Held Mine

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.

Reviews of The Hand That First Held Mine

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