Standalone Novels In Publication Order
- After You’d Gone (2000)
- My Lover’s Lover (2002)
- The Distance Between Us (2004)
- The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (2006)
- The Hand That First Held Mine (2009)
- Instructions for a Heatwave (2013)
- This Must Be the Place (2016)
- Hamnet / Hamnet & Judith (2020)
Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order
- I Am, I Am, I Am (2017)
Picture Books In Publication Order
- Where Snow Angels Go (2020)
Standalone Novels Book Covers
Non-Fiction Book Covers
Picture Book Covers
Maggie O’Farrell Books Overview
After You’d Gone
Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family, but when she gets there she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London immediately. A few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt. Alice’s family gathers at her bedside and as they wait, argue, and remember, long buried tensions emerge. The more they talk, the more they seem to conceal. Alice, meanwhile, slides between varying levels of consciousness, recalling her past and a love affair that recently ended. A riveting story that skips through time and interweaves multiple points of view, After You’d Gone is a novel of stunning psychological depth and marks the debut of a major literary talent. ‘It’s the depiction of…
deceptively small moments that is O’Farrell’s winning gift…
. Her absorbing characters gracefully circle one another ’round the room like moths at the light bulb,’ grazing their wings against life’s raw heat instead of being consumed by it.’ The New York Times Book Review ‘After You’d Gone is beautifully written contemporary fiction.’ Edna O’Brien, The Sunday Times
My Lover’s Lover
A compulsive tale of betrayal and its impact upon a group of flatmates and lovers, Maggie O’Farrell’s second novel does not disappoint. With the sensuality, passion and emotional acuteness which characterised her debut, she has written a gripping exploration of the ambivalence at the heart of intimate relationships, a keenly observed portrayal of shifting metropolitan lives and a superbly imagined story of a haunting. When Lily moves into Marcus’s flat and plunges headlong into a relationship, she must contend not merely with the disapproval of flatmate Aidan, but with a more intangible, hostile presence. Could it be that Sinead, Marcus’s ex, is trying to communicate with her? When Lily begins to ‘see’ Sinead first about the flat, and then on the streets of London, she must question not merely her sanity, but whether the man she loves is someone she can, or indeed ought to live with at all.
The Distance Between Us
On a cold February afternoon, Stella catches sight of a man she hasn’t seen for many years, but instantly recognises. Or thinks she does. At the same moment on the other side of the globe, in the middle of a crowd of Chinese New Year revellers, Jake realises that things are becoming dangerous. They know nothing of one another’s existence, but both Stella and Jake flee their lives: Jake in search of a place so remote it doesn’t appear on any map, and Stella for a destination in Scotland, the significance of which only her sister, Nina, will understand.
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone Hospital where she has been locked away for more than sixty one years. Iris s grandmother Kitty always claimed to be an only child. But Esme s papers prove she is Kitty s sister, and Iris can see the shadow of her dead father in Esme s face. Esme has been labeled harmless sane enough to coexist with the rest of the world. But she’s still basically a stranger, a family member never mentioned by the family, and one who is sure to bring life altering secrets with her when she leaves the ward. If Iris takes her in, what dangerous truths might she inherit?A gothic, intricate tale of family secrets, lost lives, and the freedom brought by truth, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox will haunt you long past its final page.
The Hand That First Held Mine
Lexie Sinclair is plotting an extraordinary life for herself. Hedged in by her parents’ genteel country life, she plans her escape to London. There, she takes up with Innes Kent, a magazine editor who wears duck egg blue ties and introduces her to the thrilling, underground world of bohemian, post war Soho. She learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it. She creates many lives all of them unconventional. And when she finds herself pregnant, she doesn’t hesitate to have the baby on her own terms. Later, in present day London, a young painter named Elina dizzily navigates the first weeks of motherhood. She doesn’t recognize herself: she finds herself walking outside with no shoes; she goes to the restaurant for lunch at nine in the morning; she can’t recall the small matter of giving birth. But for her boyfriend, Ted, fatherhood is calling up lost memories, with images he cannot place. As Ted’s memories become more disconcerting and more frequent, it seems that something might connect these two stories these two women something that becomes all the more heartbreaking and beautiful as they all hurtle toward its revelation. The Hand That First Held Mine is a spellbinding novel of two women connected across fifty years by art, love, betrayals, secrets, and motherhood. Like her acclaimed The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, it is a ‘breathtaking, heart breaking creation.’ And it is a gorgeous inquiry into the ways we make and unmake our lives, who we know ourselves to be, and how even our most accidental legacies connect us. The Washington Post Book World
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