The Hand That First Held Mine

The Sunday Times top 10 bestselling novel from the author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait

Over 400,000 copies sold

Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award

Exquisitely sensual - Emma Donoghue, author of Room

Fresh out of university and in disgrace, Lexie Sinclair is waiting for life to begin. When the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep in rural Devon, she realises she can wait no longer, and leaves for London. There, Lexie carves out a new life for herself at the heart of bohemian 1950s Soho, with Innes by her side.

In the present, Ted and Elina no longer recognise their lives after the arrival of their first child. Elina, an artist, wonders if she will ever paint again, while Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood - memories that don't tally with his parents' version of events.

As Ted's search for answers gathers momentum, so a portrait is revealed of two women separated by fifty years, but linked by their passionate refusal to settle for ordinary lives.

The journey this novel invites us on is wonderful, involving time travel, heartache, elation, confusion, freedom, nostalgia and art - Scotland on Sunday

A skilful, hurtful writer, capable of imbuing the everyday with weight and colour, ridiculously pleasurable to read - Guardian

Genuinely unputdownable - Literary Review