An engrossing study of loss and family ties, delivered with the page-turning pace of a thriller

Independent on Sunday

This weepy, now out in paperback, is guaranteed to leave you out of Kleenex... your life stands still as you turn the pages. An amazing study of love and grief as it poses the wrenching question: What do you do with all the love you have for someone when they're gone?

Glamour

Such an accomplished performance... A memorable debut

Shena MacKay, Telegraph

Grips the reader from its first, dramatic pages... Kept me up half the night, unable to put it down

Mail on Sunday

A writer of rare insight and intellect with a feel for language that renders her love story both tender and tragic

Financial Times

Dazzlingly good... When I finished it, I'm not embarrassed to say, I wept

Big Issue

'Deeply moving... O'Farrell textures the plot brilliantly, wrapping the bare bones in a rich flesh'

Times Metro

'The first proper novel I've read in an age. It is beautifully yet accessibly written and deals with the subject of grief in such an astute, touching and real way that I was on the verge of tears for most of the book' Lisa Jewell

Daily Mail

'Rarely have I been forced to give up my life so entirely to dedicate myself to a book. And I felt the strands of the story tied together beautifully, so that as well as being funny, rich and harrowing, it ws also a deeply satisfying read' Esther Freud

You Magazine

'A story of passion and romance, of lost opportunity and chance happenings, of happiness and grief. This combination of love story and mystery is a moving and powerful debut and a sign of great things to come' Sunday Mirror

'Intriguing and mysterious novel' Express

'A contemporary and unflinching look at passion and attachment' Independent

'AFTER YOU'D GONE may be Maggie O'Farrell's first novel, but it shows a maturity that more experienced writers would mortgage their typewriters for... O'Farrell possesses a fine eye for the absurdities of human behaviour, which lightens, but does not diminish the tragedy that pervades this compassionate and engrossing book' Glasgow List

'A compellling and beautifully crafted tragedy about the past getting in the way of the present' Nottingham Evening Post

'A fine novelist' The Times

'A first novel with considerable psychological depth, excellent dialogue and always convincing. There is very real talent here... Definitely an author to watch' Publishing News

'[An] assured and seductive tale of adult loss... In sensitive and almost blood-curdlingly honest detail, O'Farrell has constructed a love story dealing with the need to mine the past for clues to the present' Literary Review

'AFTER YOU'D GONE is incredibly affecting. Not because its story is unusual, but because O'Farrell really captures the power families hold. No matter how you try to cut the bonds, they always seem to choke you in the end. A devastating debut' The Face

'O'Farrell is blessed with a tender, solicitous intelligence... Honest, moving and wise beyond its author's years' Time Out

'Poetic and captivating' Woman's Journal

'Touching, funny' Evening Standard

'... precise, evocative prose ... powerful themes of love, loss and grief... a vivid and readable debut novel, which has provoked considerable excitement in the publishing world. Expect to hear more of ... Maggie O'Farrell in the future' Scottish Herald

'This was reviewed at the same time as my own OUT OF THE PICTURE, and I read the reviews with bad grace , but it is so good' Polly Samson, Tatler Books of the Year

US REVIEWS:

'Maggie O'Farrell's haunting debut... With an assurance that belies her fledgling status, O'Farrell tells her story backwards, employing multiple points of view and unsnarling the tangled web of her narrative as she goes' msnbc.com

'Poetic and wise... This is a lovely and fully realized performance' Boston Globe

'The reader's attention snared, this crafty novel never lets go... A memorable debut, and a headily promising one... Achingly well rendered in shoals and seaweed, the coastal topography of North Berwickseems to penetrate the characters' very souls...' Balltimore Sun

''O'Farrell has written a deeply elusive book,one made more mysterious... by her wonderful sense of detail: Tiny movements of mood, of unspoken affections and animosities, of thwarted expectations and cruelly dashed hopes all register like electrified blips on an EKG, as if the tragic incidents related here were... the vital signs of life itself' Los Angeles Times

'O'Farrell relies on some tricky plot developments [which] she introduces... deftly and weaves... like a master through her complex narrative... Lucid and involving, told with humor at times, intense sadness at other times... The audience for AFTER YOU'D GONE is lovers of serious, thoughtful, finely wrought fiction. This first novel delivers; let there be more' The Plain Dealer

'While skilfully employing interwoven multiple points of view... and artfully juxtaposing sections from the past and the present, O'Farrell performs a traditional, old-fashioned storytelling striptease, seductively unveiling layer after layer of revelatory secrets... The depiction of... deceptively small moments... is O'Farrell's particularly winning gift' Maud Casey

After You'd Gone was no.8 in the Sunday Express bestseller list

It is powerful... with creeping tension that leaves us feeling like we've been holding our breath

National Post, Canada

Absorbing and involving... a highly talented new writer

Canberra Times

A traditional, old-fashioned storytelling striptease, seductively unveiling layer after layer of revelatory secrets

New York Times Book Review

Such a visceral, heartrending read about grief and love, and how life can be both a marvel and a tragedy all at once

Claire Daverley