The Hand That First Held Mine

As featured on BBC Radio 4's 'A Good Read'

Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award and a Sunday Times bestseller (2010), THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE is a gorgeously written story of love and motherhood from the author of HAMNET and THE MARRAIGE PORTRAIT.

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 her 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.

Winner of Costa Novel Award 2010
Short-listed for Galaxy National Book Awards: Waterstone's UK Author of the Year 2010

“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”

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

Maggie O'Farrell is the author of HAMNET, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include AFTER YOU'D GONE, MY LOVER'S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE and THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize. She is also the author of three books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO, THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK and WHEN THE STAMMER CAME TO STAY. She lives in Edinburgh.

Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award and a Sunday Times bestseller 2010, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE by Maggie O'Farrell is a gorgeously written story of love and motherhood from the author of THIS MUST BE THE PLACE. 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 her 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.

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