Winner of the 2010 Costa Novel Award & a Sunday Times bestseller THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE by Maggie O' Farrell is a gorgeously written story of love & motherhood from the author of THIS MUST BE THE PLACEWhen the sophisticated Innes Kent turns up on her doorstep Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait any longer for her life to begin & leaves for London There at the heart of the 1950s Soho art scene she carves out a new life In the present day Elina & Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with her sense of herself as an artist & Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhood that don't tally with his parents' version of events As Ted begins to search for answers an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed separated by fifty years but connected in ways that neither could ever have expected