This Must Be the Place

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What to expect

A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK 2017

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD

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?

(P)2016 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Critics Review

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
Observer
A symphony of stories and voices... absolutely gripping... A rare talent to enthral... It will leave you bereft and wanting more
Sunday Times
Inventive, moving and hilarious. I loved it
Rachel Joyce
Beautifully executed; a graceful, insightful exploration of a relationship in all its wonders and woes
Mail on Sunday
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
Sunday Mirror
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
Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love
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 Express
For all that it whizzed about across times zones and continents, it is seamless and each character is fantastic at the next
Metro
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
Psychologies 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
Red Magazine
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
Good Housekeeping
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
i Newspaper
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
Herald
The result is dazzling, her most accomplished book yet
The National
Her best so far... epic but intimate too
Glamour
Exquisite... exceptionally accomplished and emotionally sophisticated'... 'O'Farrell is tremendously sure-footed at wrong-footing the reader
Scotsman
A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart... It will leave you bereft and wanting more
Sunday Times
One of the most enjoyable and satisfying books of the year
Daily Express
Deftly blurring the lines between holiday read and literary fiction, it's bound for the bestseller lists
Stylist
No character is wasted, no word misspent... The reach is dazzlingly epic, the tone addictively accessible. In awe.
Grazia
Fans will not be disappointed
The Times
O'Farrell's seventh novel is as captivating and as intricately written as her previous offerings
Closer
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
Irish Independent
A conjuror's sleight of hand... a deft and compelling chronicler of human relationships
Guardian
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
The Pool

User Reviews

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2.0
I didn't enjoy this as much as her other books. Too many characters which meant there was a lack of depth to them. I couldn't relate to the main characters, they seemed like actors in a film.
coxliz6 25/07/2025

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