The Hand That First Held Mine

Maggie O'Farrell

The story fluctuates between the lives of two women and their relationships, one living in the present day and the other in the 1950s-60s. It seemed inevitable that their lives would somehow be linked and I enjoyed teasing out the clues which were strewn throughout the narrative. Despite there being sadness and loss in the book there was also a lot of love. When I finished I did feel there was some hope for the remaining characters.

Extract

Alexandra does not - cannot - know the proximity of Innes Kent. She doesn't know that he is coming, getting closer with every passing second, walking in his hand-made shoes along the roads that separate them, the distance between them shrinking with every well-shod step. Life as she will know it is about to begin but she is absorbed, finally, in her reading, in a long-dead man's struggle with mortality.

Parallels