Product Description

Esme was a woman edited out of her family's history, and when, sixty years later, she is released from care, a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had. The mystery that unfolds is the heartbreaking tale of two sisters in colonial India and 1930s Edinburgh - of the loneliness that binds them together and the rivalries that drive them apart, and lead one of them to a shocking betrayal - but above all it is the story of Esme, a fiercely intelligent, unconventional young woman, and of the terrible price she is made to pay for her family's unhappiness ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #102090 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-17
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.80" h x .87" w x 5.12" l, .62 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. O'Farrell (After You'd Gone) delivers an intricate, eloquent novel of family malice, longings and betrayal. Slim, stylish Iris Lockhart runs a dress shop in contemporary Edinburgh when she's not flirting with her stepbrother Alex or rendezvousing with her married attorney lover, Luke. Esme Lennox, meanwhile, is ready to be discharged from the soon-to-be-closed psychiatric hospital where she's been a patient (read: virtual prisoner) for 61 years. Iris becomes aware of Esme's existence when she's informed, to her disbelief, that she has been granted power of attorney over Esme by Kitty Lockhart, Iris's Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother. It turns out Kitty and Esme are sisters, but Kitty kept quiet about Esme after she was hospitalized at age 16. Layer upon layer of Lockhart family secrets are laid bare—the truth behind Esme's institutionalization, why her existence was kept a secret, and a twist involving Iris's parents—as Iris mulls over what to do with her new charge, and Esme and Kitty reconnect. O'Farrell maintains a high level of tension throughout, and the conclusion is devastating. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
What a haunting story is that of Esme Lennox, a flighty girl locked in an Edinburgh insane asylum by her family for being troublesome. All kinds of things happen when shes released 60 years later into the care of a great-niece who never knew of her existence. Anne Flosnik does an excellent job with a story that shifts time periods and is told in a range of voices. She reads in a clear Scottish accent, shading character with subtle changes in pacing and modulation rather than creating a range of voices. Her flow of words creates a powerful story-current that pulls the listener along inexorably. Once begun, its hard to turn this book off. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
O'Farrell's fourth novel brilliantly illustrates her talent for gradually revealing her characters' inner lives by jumping back and forth in time and juxtaposing different narrative points of view. Iris Lockhart, a young Scottish woman, is suddenly informed that she has the power of attorney for her great aunt, Esme Lennox—who Iris never knew existed. Esme has been locked away in a mental institution for over 60 years—a fact never mentioned by her sister Kitty, Iris' grandmother, who now has Alzheimer's. In compelling prose, O'Farrell gradually pieces together the puzzle of Esme's life up to the age of 16, when her cold and repressive parents sent her away to the hospital that is now closing down. Esme had a bold and independent spirit, unseemly for a girl at that time. That as well as a younger brother who died in her arms and a never-mentioned rape contributed to her lost life—a life "half strangled by what-ifs." A gripping read with superbly crafted scenes that will blaze in the reader's memory long after the novel is returned to the shelf. Donovan, Deborah