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This Must Be the Place: Costa Award Shortlisted 2016

On sale

3rd November 2016

Price: £14.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781472243775
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SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER AWARDS.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BGE IRISH BOOK AWARDS NOVEL OF THE YEAR.

A top-ten bestseller, THIS MUST BE THE PLACE by Maggie O’Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage.

‘A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart’ The Sunday Times

A reclusive ex-film star living in the wilds of Ireland, Claudette Wells is a woman whose first instinct, when a stranger approaches her home, is to reach for her shotgun. Why is she so fiercely protective of her family, and what made her walk out of her cinematic career when she had the whole world at her feet?

Her husband Daniel, reeling from a discovery about a woman he last saw twenty years ago, is about to make an exit of his own. It is a journey that will send him off-course, far away from the life he and Claudette have made together. Will their love for one another be enough to bring Daniel back home?

Reviews

Guardian
A conjuror's sleight of hand... a deft and compelling chronicler of human relationships
Herald
She has, throughout her career, shown a willingness to experiment with form that many commercially successful writers wouldn't dare to do, as well as a willingness to explore difficult subject matter... epic and intimate
Sunday Mirror
Switching seamlessly between decades, destinations and voices, it's complex in scale, but is carried off with dazzling grace. A rich, engrossing feast of a novel to lose yourself in
Rachel Joyce
Inventive, moving and hilarious. I loved it
The National
The result is dazzling, her most accomplished book yet
The Pool
This Must Be The Place is her best yet ... At the heart of this smart, structurally interesting but never over-clever novel is the story of a relationship ... If she was a man she'd be Man Booker-shortlisted, as it is she'll have to settle for just being brilliant
Irish Independent
In the final pages, however, we are allowed to slow right down, to savour the culmination of everything that has come before, and to remember just how gifted a storyteller O'Farrell truly is
Psychologies Magazine
A new Maggie O'Farrell book is always a cause for celebration, but her seventh is so brilliant that you'll want to unfurl flags and put up bunting in her honour... Wonderfully written and absolutely addictive
Sunday Express
There is tragedy in the novel, but also sharp comedy, and O'Farrell, skilful as ever, plays with the novel form... In this rewarding and humane novel, O'Farrell brings alive the destructive effects of petty betrayals that affect everyone every day
Sunday Times
A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart... It will leave you bereft and wanting more
Glamour
Her best so far... epic but intimate too
The Times
Fans will not be disappointed
Red Magazine
I haven't read a Maggie O'Farrell novel I didn't love and This Must Be The Place might be her finest work yet... A beautiful, ambitious triumph
Metro
For all that it whizzed about across times zones and continents, it is seamless and each character is fantastic at the next
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
A magnificent novel that is perceptive, profound and page-turning in equal measures. There are few things I look forward to like a Maggie O'Farrell novel and she never disappoints
Grazia
No character is wasted, no word misspent... The reach is dazzlingly epic, the tone addictively accessible. In awe.
Scotsman
Exquisite... exceptionally accomplished and emotionally sophisticated'... 'O'Farrell is tremendously sure-footed at wrong-footing the reader
Mail on Sunday
Beautifully executed; a graceful, insightful exploration of a relationship in all its wonders and woes
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
A magnificent novel that is perceptive, profound and page-turning in equal measures. There are few things I look forward to like a Maggie O'Farrell novel and she never disappoints
Sunday Times
A symphony of stories and voices... absolutely gripping... A rare talent to enthral... It will leave you bereft and wanting more
Stylist
Deftly blurring the lines between holiday read and literary fiction, it's bound for the bestseller lists
Observer
A tour de force, a complex and nuanced story leaping effortlessly across multiple time frames... THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is that rare literary beast, both technically dazzling and deeply moving. It has all the structural and temporal playfulness of a Kate Atkinson novel while retaining the hallmark emotional insight for which O'Farrell has become renowned. It is her best novel to date, a book that surely confirms her as one of the UK's most assured, accomplished and inventive storytellers
Good Housekeeping
Some books are for lingering over. Every sentence Maggie O'Farrell writes is so perfectly formed that you want to wallow in it. As a writer, she's perceptive, warm and particularly good at the nuances of family relationships. In This Must Be The Place, she casts her sharp but humane eye on a marriage in trouble
Isabel Costello
An utterly compelling story which loops between decades and the hearts of its characters with enormous warmth, wit and poignancy.
i Newspaper
Maggie O'Farrell's new novel is beautiful... [an] epic endeavour to build a portrait of a relationship in its whole, contrary and complex plurality... the reader is won over, and rapt
Closer
O'Farrell's seventh novel is as captivating and as intricately written as her previous offerings
Daily Express
One of the most enjoyable and satisfying books of the year
Hannah Beckerman, Author of The Dead Wife's Handbook
A tour de force, a complex and nuanced story leaping effortlessly across multiple characters and time frames... destined to be one of the most acclaimed books of 2016