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This Must Be the Place cover art

This Must Be the Place

By: Maggie O'Farrell
Narrated by: Thomas Judd,Penelope Rawlins
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Editor reviews

"A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart." ( The Sunday Times)

Summary

An addictive and unforgettable novel of a marriage in freefall, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2016.

A Richard and Judy Pick 2017.

A top 10 best seller, This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell crosses time zones and continents to reveal an extraordinary portrait of a marriage.

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 20 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?

©2016 Maggie O'Farrell (P)2016 Headline Digital

Critic reviews

"A complex, riveting novel of love and hope that grips at the heart." (The Sunday Times)

What listeners say about This Must Be the Place

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wonderful story, really well read

Where does This Must Be the Place rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've just started in on unabridged books, rather than dramatized performances. This is a superb audiobook. Great to have both male and female voices, especially given that the book is constructed with chapters from the points of view of many different characters. Maggie O'Farrell had been really ambitious with This Must Be the Place, but she's pulled it off and this audiobook treatment does it justice.

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11 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fractured relationships sensitivity portrayed

This is not not a pacy, narrative-driven story, but more an exploration of human relationships. It took me a while to become engaged by the various characters whose lives are the back-bone of the novel and had to concentrate as the narrative flits back and forth in time and among the various relationships. My patience was rewarded and I started to care what happened to the characters and by the end the separate threads came together.

At times I did wonder if the digressions, in which more characters were included detracted from the central story, however I can see that they were a device for illuminating the relationships from different perspectives.

I enjoyed the book more and more as the stories unfolded and felt sorry when the book ended.

The narration by different voices certainly added to the impression that I was listening to real people relating their, at times, painful lives.

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10 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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It s long story

Im sorry to say that although I found the story well written, it was too long and interminable for me.

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10 people found this helpful

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Wonderful storytelling and characters!

Loved this multi- layered, different time horizon story. The characters and the voices vividly bringing to life Daniel and Claudette. Another cracker from Maggie O'Farrell.

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7 people found this helpful

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Wonderful book - couldn't stop listening

I don't know why I've not read any Maggie O'Farrell before, I thought she was maybe too commercial, but I stand corrected. This is a truly wonderful book, intelligent, erudite and packs a real emotional punch. The writing is excellent; nuanced and subtle. The characters are brilliantly drawn and you become truly invested in their stories.

I loved it!

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A Complete Winner. Brilliant Storytelling.

Maggie O'Farrell has outdone herself. All of her novels are absorbing, believable,heartfelt, complicated, engaging and addictive. But in this story she has put together a cast of characters that pull at the heart strings and lead the reader into a world where fallible people lead themselves and others into crises and traumas. The narrative explores how these characters redeem themselves, learn to live with their mistakes and come to terms with human tragedy, including death, divorce, alcoholism, infidelity, abandonment, parent/child estrangement and abortion.
Each character finds his/her way to a resolution of his personal difficulties and most of them find a redeeming kind of love.
I feel bereft, but hugely gratified, at the end of this story and I believe I have just listened to an important book. I will certainly read this one again. It deserves to be widely read.

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6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • K
  • 04-06-16

I love her books but this was a disappointment. Narration very good

I found this book a bit slow-going and couldn't really get into the characters the way I have with previous Maggie O'Farrell books. I wonder if the fact I read them and listened to this one made any difference, but I'd be surprised if it did because the narration was really good and believable.

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5 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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longtime O'Farrell fan; smitten as always

love the author; the performance added to the story and I found it to be a really transporting, mesmerising book.

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5 people found this helpful

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Stunning

Absolutely loved this book. Real, fragile, likeable, central characters trying to figure out a way to happiness supported by full, lifelike peripheral characters who you care about in equal measure. Clever intricately woven stories and a lightness of touch with language that at times left me breathless. Maggie O'Farrell at her very best.

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3 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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loved this

I'm a Maggie o Farnell fan anyway but I particularly liked this one. Little things happen that seem true to life. By the end I felt so involved in their family. The author has an annoying quirk of making a comment and then repeating the same thing with different words but otherwise it was great. I thought the narrators were OK, less good when they were doing people's voices, some of which were bad and I didnt like his claudette but it didn't really detract.

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3 people found this helpful