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I'm so glad to have been introduced to Maggie O'Farrell! As in "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox", her prose is delicate, compelling, and wrenching. This could also describe her plotting. "Hand..." initially alternates two seemingly unrelated narratives; that of Lexie, a career girl in postwar London, and that of Elina and Ted, new parents in the present. Gradually, a connecting thread is revealed, as is a devastating legacy of deceit and malice. The heartbreak in the novel is leavened by the he
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I loved the period Soho detail and found the characters interesting and engaging. I have no experience of childbirth or post natal depression (spoiler)but it read very real to me. The dovetailing of the two different stories/timelines worked very well and kept you guessing till very near the end. At first I thought the writers style was slightly "arch" and flowery, but it soon settled down.
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