Born in Northern Ireland.

Yes we can claim that an author born in Northern Ireland is a Northern Irish author and one who it's been very hard to ignore over the last couple of weeks is Maggie O’Farrell.
Her latest novel opens with...

Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.
The garden is empty, the patio deserted, save for some pots with geraniums and delphiniums shuddering in the wind. A bench stands on the lawn, two chairs facing politely away from it...  

If like me, before buying a book you like to read the opening lines, you'll not want to put this one down. Entitled The Hand That First Held Mine the blurb for the novel reads...

A gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de force from one of our most acclaimed and best loved novelists.

When the bohemian, sophisticated Innes Kent turns up by chance 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 for herself, with Innes at her side.  In the present day, Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child.  Elina, a painter, struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense of herself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood, memories that don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins to search for answers, so an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed, separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected.

Reviewed by Claire Hopley in the Washington Times, she sums up with...

...it helps make "The Hand That First Held Mine" compelling reading. Yet Maggie O'Farrell's sharpness of perception, her talent for the telling detail and the ability to evoke both places and states of mind show that she could set her characters free to explore the world and create their own destinies. This suggests that it will be worth watching for her future work - this is her fifth book.

Tina Jackson in Metro...

O’Farrell handles the shifts and links between past and present with a consummate grace that heightens the sense that the story is on an inevitable trajectory towards shocking revelations. The low-key lyricism of her writing heightens both suspense and emotions: this is as much a novel about what it means to love as it is about the devastation that can occur when people conceal the most shameful parts of their past.

Valerie Miner in the Boston Globe...

O’Farrell creates a suspenseful atmosphere of distrust. When she finally reveals the connections between the two generations and lifts the opaque curtain, we enter a scene of surprising grace and hopefulness.

So, ladies (and gentlemen) have you read this book yet, what did you think about this novel written by a "Northern Irish author" ? I'd love to find out, leave a comment or a link to where you've reviewed this book.