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ABBEY'S BOOKSELLER PICK ----- After the wildly successful Hamnet, O'Farrell turns to Renaissance Italy and the story of Lucrezia di Cosimo de' Medici, who in 1560 left Florence for Ferrara and marriage to Duke Alfonso II d'Este - and who was dead a year later. In this colourful and fresh novel, Lucrezia lives as a vibrant young girl, intelligent, observant and dutiful, knowing that her father values his daughters only for their potential political use, as bargaining chips on the dynastic marriage market. But Lucrezia wants more than that, and finds solace and satisfaction in her learning and her painting. She will have no say in her future, according to her father and her future husband - and when she is married and taken to a city that may as well be another country, she will learn that her husband only values her for what she cannot give him… A marvellously evocative historical tale with vivid characterisations and an immediacy that brings Renaissance Italy to life. Lindy
Maggie O'Farrell, FRSOL, is the author of HAMNET, Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include AFTER YOU'D GONE, MY LOVER'S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE and THIS MUST BE THE PLACE. She is also the author of WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO, a novel for children. She lives in Edinburgh.
Every bit as evocative and spellbinding as Hamnet. O'Farrell, thank God, just seems to be getting better and better . . . O'Farrell's writing is so vivid it melts away the time and space between now and 16th-century Italy . . . With The Marriage Portrait, then, O'Farrell hasn't just produced another magnificently transporting page-turner. She has given us an exhilarating, devastating look at women's captivity, creativity and ultimately, rebellion in a world run by some very cruel men * i newspaper * Finely written and vividly imagined, it is far from being simplistic, but there is an engaging simplicity to it . . . a very good one to be read, as publishers used to say, by ""children of all ages"" * Guardian Book of the Day * In O'Farrell's hands, historical detail comes alive . . . evocative, moving and sensitively rendered * Spectator * O'Farrell is simply outstanding * Guardian * Her writing is exquisite. Immersive and compelling * Marian Keyes * An extraordinary writer with a profound understanding of the most elemental human bonds * Observer * One of the most exciting novelists alive * Washington Post * Ingenious, inventive, humane, wry, truthful . . . better than her last novel * Scotsman * Her narrative enchantment will wrest suspense and surprise out of a death foretold * Financial Times *
